Lost Precious China
by Redwaters
Summary: The turtle tykes get into a fight which results in some things being said that shouldn't have. Donnie and Mikey get caputered by a human bully, but thanks to a girl and her dad they get resuced. Years later they and Splinter repay the favor.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimers:** Whether they are young or old, I don't own TMNT.

_A/N: This was a little plot bunny I came up with one day and finally decided to commit to writing it._

_I came up with 'Precious China' because it's been a term I heard parents use to sometimes describe the value of their childern.

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**Chapter One**

A nine-year-old Michelangelo was in no particular mood to share his newly acquired toy with his two 'older' (really same age) brothers, Leonardo and Raphael. His first reason was that they tended to be particular rough when it came to remote control planes. They loved making the toy do daredevil stunts that usually ended in it landing in many pieces. His second reason was that Donatello had fixed the toy up just for him.

It was this reluctance to share that caused a large fight among the turtle brothers in the team of younger brothers versus older ones. The older ones were mad at the younger ones for supposedly conspiring not to share the good toys. The younger ones protested that this was the first time they ever got a 'good' toy and that they were tried of being second in line for hand-me-downs one that Master Splinter find on his scavenger hunts, only to get them in pieces or when the toys no longer worked.

At one point Donatello informed Leonardo that the plane use to belong to him, but he no longer wanted it when the propeller stop twisting and the plane no longer rolled. Michelangelo backed Don up by reminded his 'elder' brother about not wanting to share when he first had the plane, so now it was only fair to do the same.

Disliking the fact that his mistakes were pointed out to him, Leonardo retaliated by latching onto the remote Michelangelo held in the attempt to yank itaway. However the young turtle kept his grip on the device as if it was the most valuable thing in his life. (Which it was at this point.) Donatello immediately jumped in to help his orange brother by also grasping the remote. Know that two against one was not fair and not wanting to be left out of a good fight, Raphael joined Leonardo in the tug-of-war.

For a couple of minutes the pulling match went on until the four brothers all lost grip of the remote and it flew up into the air. That's when the shoving began over who was going to catch the seemly floating device. In the end nobody managed to win the fight and the remote bounced of the concrete ground. A large crack developed in the corner of the remote, causing the fighting to break up in squabbling teams of two, Leonardo verse Donatello and Raphael versus Michelangelo.

"You creep!" Michelangelo cried. "Donnie made that plane work for me. ME! And you just had to go and break it before I had a real chance to even make it fly."

"If you shared it with us, this wouldn't have happened." Raphael retorted.

"You wanted to play with it before I had a chance to do anything." Michelangelo snapped. "I just wanted to do at least one loop-de-loop, but you couldn't even allow that to happen."

"Do you know how long it took me to get it working again?" Donatello bellowed. "It took me days, that's how long."

"You didn't have the right to give _my_ plane to Mikey when you fixed it." Leonardo snarled.

"I asked you if you wanted it anymore, even when I did fix it." Donatello pointed out. "But you didn't believe that I could make it work again so I gave it to Mikey cause he asked for it first."

As the bickering when on, the more vicious it became until name-calling was brought in. And when name-calling enters a fight, it was only a matter of time before both sides would start to say regrettable things.

"You guys are such jerks!" Donatello and Michelangelo yelled together.

"And you guys a such brats." Leonardo and Raphael replied in unison.

"I hate you!" The four bellowed at once. "I wish we weren't related."

From there the two teams broke away. Leonardo and Raphael marched off to the couch to watch television. Donatello carefully picked up the damaged remote while Michelangelo took up the plane before the two exited the sewer home for sanctuary elsewhere.

The two young turtles didn't know where they were going to go, nor did they cared. They just wanted to walk off the heated steam they carried. After awhile the anger was gone and soon the two wanted to focus their attention onto the plane.

"Does the remote still work?" Michelangelo asked.

Donatello scanned the device over. "Yeah it looks like it. Just the casing is broken, but it doesn't look like the inside took any real damage." He held the remote out and his brother took it carefully.

"Contact." Michelangelo said as he flipped a switch.

The propeller gave a few weak turns before stopping. A disappointed look came onto the turtles' faces until the propeller stuttered, working at coming back to life. In time the weak spins turned to going smooth enough to sound like purring.

Happily grinning, Michelangelo lightly pressed a lever up to make the plane move forward. "Taking off in…" The plane picked up speed as it moved down the sewer tunnel. "3…2…1!" It took off the ground and sailed through the air without error.

"We have lift off." Donatello cheered while jumping into the air. "I knew it would work again."

"Good job genius." Michelangelo congratulated as he moved another lever to make the plane turn around and it flew towards them.

After watching the toy go over his head, Donatello nudged his brother's arm. "Make it flip."

"Ok." Michelangelo stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth as he manipulated the levers. But instead of gettingitto do a trick, the plane turned around and dive-bombed at two turtles. Luckily they managed to duck in time for it fly over their heads.

Again Michelangelo tried to make the plane do the requested flip and this time it did a summersault while continuing down the sewer tunnel.

"Turn it around." Donatello said anxiously.

"I'm trying to, but the controls don't seem to be working." Michelangelo replied while messing around with the levers. "I think the drop really did something."

"Let me give it a try." Donatello took the remote from his brother and began messing with the levers. "Meh, it's not responding."

"So now what?" Michelangelo questioned.

"I guess we chase it down and take it back home so I can fix it." Donatello answered. "Leo's going to be gloating over this. He's gonna claim that we deserved what we got cause we didn't share."

"Then I'm gonna tell him that it was his and Raph's fault for trying to snatch the remote and that they broke it." Michelangelo stated.

Donatello gave a nod in agreement towards his brother before the two of them ran after their rogue plane. After going a couple of feet they start to hear voices. "Hey look guys, a plane just land at our feet." A young boy said.

"It's a remote plane, but where is the remote?" A second young boy questioned.

"Probably with the guy flying you idiot." A third young boy said, though he sounded a bit older than the other too. "But whoever's got it isn't going to have it for long." He let out a laugh and the other two boys joined in.

The two turtles stopped a yard away from the voices and hid behind a wall. Carefully they peeked around the corner. "Someone's got our plane." Michelangelo whispered. "What are we gonna do?"

Donatello looked at the three boys surround the toy plane; none of them were holding it. "Cross your fingers and hope the remote decides to work again." Michelangelo did as he was told while his brother flipped the switch on the remote.

"Yo Darren, it starting up." One of the boys cried.

"Looks like someone's trying to get their toy back." The older younger boy stated.

"What are we going to do?" The other young boy asked.

"Let it go and see where it leads us." Darren whispered. "That way we can find out who owns it and beat them up for it."

Donatello pressed down on a lever and the plane started to move toward him. Once it picked up enough sped the plane went into the air, flying towards the two turtles. As it was starting to pass where they were hiding, Michelangelo jumped up and snatched the plane for the air.

"Darren, do you see what I see?" One of the boys squealed.

"Yeah." Darren breathed.

Both turtles froze with fear when he saw the three boys staring at him. The one called 'Darren' was tall with huge muscle all over his body. He couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen years old with buzz cut dark hair, cruel looking hazel eyes, and fair skin. Plus he was dressed like some sort of army boy, complete with the combat boots.

The other two boys were identical twins at the age of either eleven or twelve. They both had short ebony black hair, brown eyes, and were dressed in blue gym suits. The only way that they could have been told apart was the one boy had a white stripe going down the side of pant legs while his brother had none.

"What do ya think they are?" The boy without the white stripe questioned.

"Looks like a giant turtle boys." Darren answered. "Something out the tabloids."

"Say, if we catchthem do ya think we can get a lot of money for them?" The boy with the stripe asked.

"But why sell them right away?" Darren replied. "Let's takethem back to the hideout as pets for a while. Then we'll sell them when were done 'playing' with them."

Both turtle boys gulped as they watched all three boys come towards them. Deciding to forget the plane, they dropped it and the remote to make a run for home. But they forgot how they got to where they were, so they didn't really know where to run. Not that they could have gotten very far, because the three boys were a tad bit faster than they were.

Before the two turtle boys could have gotten very far, Darren had seized them by the backs of their shells. "Oh you guys aren't going to leave, are you?" The older boy asked slyly. "Cause that would be bad if you did."

"Like you could do anything to us." Michelangelo said before giving the boy a kick in the shin.

Darren cringed with pain. "Ow!" He was not happy and he retaliated by throwing the orange masked turtle to the twin boys. They held his arms tight as the older boy balled up his free hand and socked Mike in the face.

Michelangelo began to cry with pain, never had he been hit so hard. Not even his brothers hit him like that before. "I want my father!" He bellowed.

"Aw. Turtle boy wants his daddy." Darren teased and the twin boys laughed cruelly.

"Leave him alone." Donatello ordered as he reached with both hands behind for the hand that held his shell and pinched it as hard as he could.

Darren slammed the purple masked turtle up against the wall and held him there. Then he pushed his balled up fist under the turtle's nose. "If you don't want to get hurt, than I suggest you do _exactly_ as I say." He warned. "Or a bloody lip will be the least of your problems."

"Why are you doing this?" Donatello questioned while timidly pushing the threatening fist away. "We haven't done anything to you."

"Cause I'm a bully." Darren replied rudely. "It's in my job description to be mean." He pushed his fist back toward the young turtle. "So you guys are going to give us any more trouble?" Michelangelo let out a whimpered 'uh-uh' and Donatello shook his head. "Good, then lets go."

Putting the two young turtles in the middle, the three boys marched them back over to the manhole the came down and pushed them up the ladder onto street level. Being on street level for the first time without their master/father scared the two young turtles, but the three boys didn't let them have a chance for fear to set in. Instead they rushed theircaptured prize over to an abandon looking building and ushered them down some stairs that led to place underneath the building.

Once inside the single room apartment, the twin boys pushed Donatello and Michelangelo to a wall on the far side where a medium size pipe was attached. Darren dashed over to a milk crate that was full of junk. He shuffled through the stuff until he found a length of chain with two locks. While the twin boys held the young turtles, Darren wrapped one end of the chain around Don's ankle and locked into place. Then he wrapped the other end of chain round the pipe before locking onto Mike's ankle.

"What should we do to them first?" The twin boy without the stripe asked.

"Let see how hard their shells are." The other twin boy suggested while he pulled two bats out of the milk crate. "At the same time we could be practicing our swing."

Darren waved a hand at the idea. "Nah. I have a better idea." He gathered the twin boys into a huddle and whispered to them.

"That's a great idea." One of them laughed. "We haven't done that in a while."

"I thought your mom threw that stuff away so you couldn't do it anymore." The other questioned.

"Yeah, but I managed to swipe some money out of her purse while she wasn't look and bought myself some more." Darren replied as he walked out the door. "She'll be home any minute though, so we have to hurry." His two minions followed after him.

Once the door was closed, Donatello turned to his orange masked brother. "How's your cheek?" He turned the young turtle's head so he could look at it.

"A little tender." Michelangelo sniffled. "But how are we gonna get outta here?"

Donatello released his brother's head and grasped the chain. He gave it a couple tugs to found out it was quite tough. "I don't know."

"Do you think there maybe keys in that box?" Michelangelo asked while he pointed to the milk crate.

"Maybe." Seeing as he was closest, Donatello walked over to crate full of stuff.

But even with Michelangelo's ankle as close to the pipe as he could get it, the length of the chain was only a yard and the crate was still way too far out of reach. Feeling defeated the two young turtles put their shells up against the wall and slid down into a seated position.

"Do you think maybe Master Splinter will find us before the boys come back?" Michelangelo questioned quietly.

"I don't think so." Donatello replied. "He's not going to be home until later tonight."

"What about Leo and Raph?" Michelangelo asked. "Won't they come looking for us?"

"We don't even know where we are." Donatello pointed out. "How they know where to look for us?"

There was moment of silence before Michelangelo whispered, "…I'm scared."

"Me too." Donatello quietly replied.

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_A/N2: Well it looks like our boys have gotten a tasted of what a bully is like. Don't you just hate them? _


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Cherise (usually called Cherish by her father) was a young girl of nine years with skin tanned from playing outside a lot and cinnamon brown eyes. Her shoulder length reddish brown was always in a tight braid and her outfit was light blue overall jeans, a gray t-shirt, and pink tennis shoes. At this moment she was standing by a set of stairs that led from the street down to a basement apartment of an abandoned building. Down there was her favorite bouncy ball that was big enough to fit in the palm of her hand, had many colors swirl around, and glowed in the dark. It had gotten away from her when she was bouncing while walking around on her block as her usual form of play. It bounced off a rock on the sidewalk, making it go at an angle and down the stairs she was now at.

Chewing slight on the tip of her index finger, the young girl contemplated going down the stairs to get it or abandoning as a lost cause. She really didn't want to lose the ball, because her dad had gotten it for her as a special surprise. But going down alone to get it would mean testing her luck against being able to actually _walk _way and with it in hand.

See the problem she faced was that the basement apartment was the hideout of her neighborhood bully, Darren. Nobody was allowed to come anywhere near the place with out his special permission. Anyone foolish enough to do so would earn themselves great injury starting from Indian rub burns for first warnings leading up to broke bones for multiple warnings.

In the end Cherise decided that it would be safer if she just wait for her dad to come home. That way she would have someone big to protect her as she went to gather up the lost toy. Of course this plan had to do with luck too. Luck that the ball would still be there, not discovered by Darren or his gang and added to their crate full of other toys they have swiped from kids he's bullied.

But as young girl went to leave for home, the boy she feared most was heading her way from his own place with his two favorite minions following behind him. All three boys had their arms crammed with balloons fill with something liquid. Cherise had an idea of what was in them, but didn't want to stick around to find out if she was right. Instead she dashed behind a wall of garbage cans that were near the stairs and held her breath so they would have no clue of her being there. She also hoped that they wouldn't use the trashcans as target practice before going down to their hideout.

Luck was on her side, for the three boys were in too much of a hurry to get into their hideout. Once the door was shut and locked, Cherise ventured out of her hiding spot. At first she complained about her luck on Darren not being there, cause if she knew she would have gotten her ball back. But then she happy about her good fortune that he didn't know it was even there, because that would mean there was chance she could get it back with her dad.

As she was about to leave to sit on the stoop of her building to wait for her dad to come home from work, like she's everyday, Cherise heard voices that didn't sound familiar.

"What are you going to do with those?" One voice cried.

"What do you think?" Said a voice belong to one of the twin boys that ran with Darren.

"I wanna go home." Another voice sobbed.

"Shuddup." Darren said before there was a splat sound to be heard.

"Ack." The first unrecognized voice gagged. "It's paint."

"Well ain't we the smart one." Darren joshed crudely.

Suddenly a bunch of splats came echoing out of the building. Acry of 'stop' came with each one, but the boys just laughed and continued doing what was making the splat sound.

Wondering who the two latest victims were, Cherise slipped down a couple of steps to where there was a window and peeked in. Her eyes grew wide when saw a couple of humanoid boy size turtles chained to a pipe and being pelt with paint filled balloons. One wearing a purple mask was trying his best to shield the one wearing an orange mask. But still the two were getting equally drenched in paint.

For a moment Cherise's mind raced with a couple of questions. Who were those guys? Where did they come from? Where were their parents? What could she do to help them?

But the only question she could think up answers for was the last one, about helping them. At first she thought about running over to Darren's house and getting his mom. She was the only person who truly scared the bully. However Cherise realized that if she did get his mom, the humanoid turtles would be in bigger trouble than they were already in. Seeing something that bizarre might make his mom allow them to continue what they were doing or that she might call the cops on them.

Looking at how hurt and scared the two young turtles were, Cherise knew she could let that happen. If she were in their spot (which she actually had been minus being chained to a wall) she would have wanted someone to help her without getting her into anymore trouble. So the next idea the young girl had was to get her dad. With his open mind, Cherise knew that the young turtles would be in good hands.

But to get her dad, Cherise had to run home and call him from work. So without wasting another minute, the young girl dashed from the stair. As quick as she could she ran down the street, counting off the house as she went long. "4…3…2…1!" Reaching her building she rushed up three flights of stairs to where her apartment was.

"Cherise you know better than to run." A woman in her mid forties with skin covered in mud bellowed as the young girl as she ran down hall. She had black hair with white going across the top of her head, showing that the woman was dying her hair to hide its true color. The woman also had bluish eyes and was dress in a bathrobe, because she was about to take a bath.

"Sorry Mrs. Sway." Cherise yelled behind her. "But I have to make a call."

Mrs. Sway was a woman that babysat Cherise while her father was at work. Really all the elder woman did was just checked in on the young girl while she was in the apartment and made sure that Cherise checked in with her before going anywhere. With help like that, the young girl was better off on her own.

At her door Cherise ran inside and raced over to the phone. She flipped through the Rolodex to find her dad's work number. The phone rang a couple of times before someone picked up.

" Animal Hospital and Sitters." A woman answered. "We pamper you pets and kept them healthy too."

"Hi Belinda, it's me Cherise." The young girl said.

"Chrissie!" The woman cooed. "How nice of you to call."

Cherise cringed, she hated to be called Chrissie. "Is dad there? I need to talk to him."

"Just a minute I'll patch you to his office." Belinda said.

"Hi Cherish." A man's voice said a couple seconds later.

"Daddy you have to come home quick!" Cherise cried.

"What the matter? Are you in trouble?" The man asked anxiously. "It's Darren isn't it."

"Yes."

"What's he done to you now? Pulled your hair? Dump paint on you? Tried to break something?"

"It's not me that he's hurting. It's someone else and you're not going to believe me if I told you who."

"You can tell me sweet-heart."

"Two human size turtles. They looked like boys, but they're turtles and I don't think they're wearing costumes. Darren has them chained up in his hideout and they'rethrowing paint balloons at them. You got to come home and help them, you just got to."

At first there was silence on the phone before the man spoke up. "Are you sure you saw what you saw?"

"I'm positive." Cherise said with great insistence. "So can you get home? Can you help them? Please say you'll help them."

The man let out a sigh. "You know I can't say know to you and I can't let such abuse happen. I'll be home as soon as I can."

"Ok." Cherise gave a sigh of relief. "I'll be waiting on the stoop for you." She hung up the phone and while she did, she realized something. The fastest her dad ever got home was in half an hour. That was too much time to let the two young turtles suffer such torture from Darren and the twin boys.

Know that she had to do something to get those bullies to stop she ran back down hall and out of the build, ignoring Mrs. Sway along the way. Once she was back at the stairs to the basement apartment, she had to think of something to get Darren away and make sure he stayed away.

A grin came onto the young girl's face as an idea came to her. She knew if you accused him of doing something wrong, he'd tried to prove his innocent by lying his way out of it. All she had to do was call him on something he did and he would get himself in trouble. But this wasa gamble cause if she said the wrong thing, she would get into major trouble. Howevershe also knew that his mother had confiscated all is balloons and paints. So in order for him to get some more, he had to get money from somewhere.

"Darren! Darren!" Cherise cried down.

The door opened quickly. "What do you want?" Darren asked crudely.

"It's your mom." Cherise replied. "I think she's looking for you and she mad."

Darren raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "About what?"

"Something about money and her purse." Cherise told him.

"Snap!" Darren cried. "I didn't think she knew." He pulled his head back into the building. "I got to get home and explain my way out of this. You two go home too. Nobody plays with them without me here."

"Yes sir." The twin boys replied.

All three boys came out of the building and ran up the stairs. "We'll meet back up here later." Darren ordered and then he turned Cherise. "I'll let you off coming here, because you gave me a heads up. But if you ain't out off here, you'll really get it."

"I'm gone." Cherise said before running back for her building.

The young girl sat down on her stoop when she got there and watched as Darren ran up the stair of his place that was right next to hers. He was on the first floor, so the window to his living room faced the stoop. Lucky for her the curtains were open and she was able to watch the whole scene play out.

Darren walked up behind his mom, who was busy dusting something, looking as innocently as a guilty person could. "Mother dear." He said sweetly. "About the money missing from your purse. I know who took it. It was…"

"There's money missing from my purse?" His mom cried and ran off to go check it.

"But…but I thought you knew." Darren followed after her. "It's wasn't much and I didn't…"

"You bought more stuff to torture the other neighborhood children with, didn't you?" His mom bellowed. "What in the world am I going to do with you!" The young boy came running back out into the living room holding his butt in defense to the swat he soon received when his mother came out after him. "I swear, ever since your father left on business you've been nothing but trouble. He and I have been talking you know. Talking about what we're going to do about this rotten behavior of yours. So you better watch you step."

After the woman left the room, Darren spied Cherise and ran over to the window. It took him a while to work open the window, but once he did he stuck his head out and yelled, "You little lair."

"I didn't lie." Cherise replied harmlessly. "I said I _think_ she's looking for you. I didn't say she was."

"You just wait until I get my hands on you." Darren threatened. "You'll never walk again."

"Darren you get away from that window immediately." His mom ordered. "That's it. That's the last straw. I'm calling your father right now and we are going to make plans to send you to boot camp."

"What!" Darren cried. "No, not that."

"Why not?" His mom questioned. "You dress like them already. Might as well send you." She rushed out of the room with the young boy following after her while pleading.

Cherise just had to laugh, this was the first time she ever got back at her neighborhood bully and it kind of felt good. But the nice feeling went away when she thought about the poor turtle boys stuck back at Darren's hideout. How scared they must be right about now.

And while she thought about them, she realized that there was no way her dad could walk down the street with them out in the open. So she ran back up to her apartment, dug out a dark green velvet cape her dad would wear when they dressed up for Renaissance reenactments, and ran back down stairs to wait.

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A/N: Bully problem solved. All that's left now is to rescue the turtle boys 


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I'm surprised at how fast this story is starting to come out. I just hope I can keep up the steady pace. (Kncock on wood) _**_

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**Chapter Three**

Marcus was a man in his late twenties with fairly light skin and had brown shoulder length hair. He usually wore the typical uniform for a veterinarian: white business shirt, black dress pants, and dress shoes. The only unusual bit about his outfit was his strangely colored necktie with words '#1 Dad' on it.

"Belinda I need you to reschedule all what appointments I have left." The young man said into his intercom while removing his doctor's coat. "I have to go home to right away." He put the coat onto a wire hanger so he could put it into his small closet he had in the office.

"It's that bully isn't it?" Belinda answered. "He's after Chrissie isn't he?"

"Uh…yes." Marcus lied. Like he could tell her what his daughter told him. Not that he was entirely sure that he believed what his little Cherish had said.

"I'll get on it right away doctor." Belinda answered.

Quickly Marcus adjusted his shoulder bag across him and dashed out of building without say 'bye' to anyone. From the sidewalk outside the office he flagged down a cab. Usually he'd take the subway home, but seeing as this was an emergency he saw no reason to spare any expense or time.

"Kids of great fashion senses, don't they mac?" The cabbie said while the young man climbed into the vehicle.

"They sure do." Marcus replied while noting the driver's brightly colored checkered hat with the phrase 'Greatest Dad' sewn onto it.

While he rode, the young man thought about what his daughter had told him. '_Human sized turtles…boy human size turtles._' It was like he couldn't wrap his mind around the idea. But he knew his daughter wouldn't call him at the office just to tell some kind of fairytale or to lie.

Fortunately traffic was light and the driver knew how to make good time, so Marcus was actually able to make it home earlier than usual. He was just exiting the cab as his daughter was coming out of the apartment building. When she saw him the young girl immediately ran to him and jumped up into his open arms.

"Her name means grace and she my ace. Parish the thought of why I call her Cherish." Marcus said before blowing in to her cheek.

"Daddy stop it." Cherise giggled. "I'm so glad your home." She gave her father's neck a squeeze.

Marcus put his daughter down and noticed that she had his cloak. "What you doing with that?"

"It's so you can go get you-know-who." Cherise whispered. "You can't walk out with them for everyone to see right? Cause then someone might call the cops and something bad could happen to them."

"Smart girl." Marcus said while giving the young girl a rub on the head. "So where are they?"

"Downstairs of that old abandoned building down the block." Cherise told him. "I got Darren to leave them alone."

Marcus looked surprised. "How did you manage to do that?"

"I told him I thought his mom was looking for him and he believed me." Cherise replied. "He got himself into a lot of trouble with her and now he's going to boot camp."

"Bout time that kid got what's coming to him." Marcus muttered under his breath. His daughter cocked her head at him and he put on a nervous smile. "Well then, give me the cloak and I'll go to them."

"Here you go daddy." Cherise said as she hand the cloak to him.

"Thank you." Marcus tucked the cape into the crook of his arm. "Now you get yourself up stairs." He gave the young girl a love swat on the bottom as a way of ushering her up the stoop. "I'll be home as soon as I get them home."

"Ok." Cherise said while going up into the building.

Marcus made his way down to the abandon building and started down the stairs when he got there. Before going all the way down the stairs, the young man stopped at the window to take peek inside. There he saw the two turtle boys Cherise told him about press up as far against the wall as they could be. Each one was rubbing their eyes to get the paint out of them while they cried. He felt so sorry for them and made his way down the rest of the stairs.

When Marcus tried to open the door he found that it was lock. "Of course it would be." He grumbled to himself. After looking around to see if anyone was coming or going by, the young man gave the door a sharp shove with is shoulder and it opened with a bang. This caused the two turtle boys to squeal with fear.

Marcus put an index finger to his lips. "Shh." But that only made the two turtle boys sob louder. "It's ok. It's ok." He said quickly while waving a hand at them. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to get you out of here." This made the two young turtles soften their sobs to sniffles. "That's better."

As he made his way over to them, Marcus pulled his shoulder bag in front of him and opened it up to bring out some moisten wipes. Then he took hold of the chin belonging to the turtle boy wearing a purple mask. The young turtle shut his eyes tight while his lips trembled in the attempt to stop the urge to cry out loud.

"That's it big boy." Marcus praised while he wiped the young turtles mouth and cheeks, removing as much of the paint as he could. "So what your names?" He asked as he went to clean the young turtle's hands.

"D…D…Donatello." The young turtle hiccupped. "A…and my brother's name is…is…Mic…Michelangelo."

"I see." Marcus replied as he moved over to the orange masked turtle and began cleaning him off. "So where are you parents?"

"Our…our father is out…out scavenging." Michelangelo said while his face was being cleaned. "He's…he's a rat."

"A rat?" Marcus almost let out a laugh, because he wasn't expect that. "So where do you live?"

"In the sewers." Donatello answered, now a bit calmer than before. "But…but we don't know how to get back there cause we don't know where we are right now."

"I see." Marcus looked down at the chain wrapped around the young turtles' ankles when he was done with Michelangelo. "Do you know where they kept the keys?" The two turtles shook their head. "Great." He blew an air of frustration out of the corner of his mouth before looking around for something to cut the locks with. To his great fortunate he managed to find a pair of rust cover, yet functional, bolt cutters in the milk crate.

Seeing the human with the oddly shape tool scared the two little turtles. The end of it looked like a beak from a large bird that would eat things like them for breakfast. So when Marcus came over to them with it out in front of him, aimed for the locks near their ankles, the two let out a high pitched scream as they hugged each other close.

Marcus let released a one of the cutter's hands so that he could run a hand down his face while letting out a sigh. Knowing that no amount of explain was going to calm them down now, the young man kneeled down in front of them, put the cutters down, and guided the two frightened turtles into a seated position. Next he took hold of Donatello's ankle and placed it on his bended knee so he could cut the lock off. Once the lock was cut, the purpled masked turtle kick the chain off.

Immediately Michelangelo put his chained ankle on the man's knee. "Me next."

Marcus smirked at this movement and quickly cut the lock. "There you go."

With Michelangelo free too, Donatello grabbed his hand. "Thankyougottogo." He said while trying to make a run for the door with his brother in tow. Through the human was nice, he didn't want to stay around to see what he was really going to do next.

"Now just hold on there you two." Marcus said while grabbing Michelangelo's other hand as the little turtle was going by him.

Donatello almost fell on his shell when he felt the sudden resistance. The young turtle turned around and glared at the human. "Let go." He ordered while pulling on Michelangelo, who didn't look too comfortable being pulled two different ways.

"Stop that, your hurting your brother." Marcus scolded and Donatello immediately did as he was told, (which was a surprise to him). "Now I know you want to go home and I'll be more than happy to take you there. But if you go out into the open you might get captured again. Do you want that to happen?" Both turtles looked at him and shook their heads. "Well alright then."

The young man released Michelangelo's hand so that he could unfold the cloak he had in the crook of his arm. At first he was going to drape it over the two turtle and carry them out onto the street. But after thinking about it he realized that wasn't a very good idea. For one they were two big to be carried at the same time; furthermore it would look just as weird then if he didn't use the cloak at all. His next idea was to still drape it on and usher them along, but this also proved to be impossible to be done. Anything could pull the cloak off them along as well as make very hard for them to see or move.

In the end the young man put the dark green velvet cloak on, the bottom of it was about a centimeter from touching the ground, and was going to have the young turtles walk with him underneath it. It would be hard to maneuver with them so close to his legs, but really what choice did he have?

"Alright you two, I'm going to have to ask you boys to trust me on this, ok?" Marcus told them somewhat sternly and the young turtles nodded timidly. "And you guys are going to have to be quiet while we walk, alright?" Again the turtles nodded. "Good. Now give me your hands." Michelangelo fearfully took the young man's left hand while Donatello took the right. "Ok now pull the ends of the cloak around you and stay close to me." Though they did look a little bulky, it was not enough to draw much attention from anyone passing by them or them passing anyone else.

While exiting from the building for street level, Marcus noticed that night was falling fast and the sudden gust of wind carried an odor of rain coming their way. He looked up at the darkening sky to see clouds gathering in a storm threatening way. This reminded him of a news report heard in the cabby's car about a rather large thunderstorm coming to their area. If he were to take the boys down into the sewers now and not find their home in time before the storm started, there would be a chance they would get caught in a flood when the underground swelled with rainwater.

"Boys I'm afraid that I can't take you home at this time." Marcus told the two young turtles, glad that nobody was around to think him insane or to be suspicious. In reply Donatello and Michelangelo tried to pull their hands from his, but he held on. "I will take you home, but tonight a storm is coming. It will be too dangerous for us to travel in the sewers during it." The small three fingered hands stopped their tugging and a couple of sniffles were heard. "Don't worry, you will not be alone. My daughter will be happy to keep you company." Brief movement under cloak revealed the little turtles were wiping their nose with their free hand.

Glad that they did not use his pant legs, Marcus quickly walked up the street with the young turtles in tow. Of course he realized that he had to slow down a bit, because their little legs couldn't keep up with his long ones. Just like his daughter liked to do, the young man counted down the house along the way to his building. "4…3…2…"

"Marcus! Oh Marcus!" A voice called out from the last building before his.

"Oh no." Marcus quietly groaned before looking over at the building he was currently in front of. "Good day Mrs. Mason." He said to the elder lady standing on top of the stoop. She looked to be in her fifties with bushy white hair, darken skin, and green eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses. The lady wore a dress with flowery print underneath a checkered apron. "I would love to stay and chat, but I must really get home to Cherish."

"Oh you can spare a couple minutes." Mrs. Mason said while wave her free hand, because she held a platter of cookies in the other. "I have a batch of my famous peanut butter cookies with big chucks of chocolate fresh from the oven and I just know you want some to take home to that little angel of yours."

"Please Mrs. Mason, you spoil her. I swear that you do." Marcus replied with a smirk.

"And why not?" The elder woman semi-snapped. "My children live on the other side of the country and rarely come to visit me. So if I can't spoil my grandchildren, then I'll just have to spoil little Cherise and the other children of the neighborhood."

"Well I do admit that you make a great substitute grandmother for her." Marcus told her. "But I really must insist that I be getting home now."

"Well if you won't have some cookies now, then I insist that you take a bag with you." Mrs. Mason said with persistence while placing the platter onto the stone rail of the stoop and produced a bag from the almost nowhere. "After all, what am I going to do with it all? I can't eat them, they are bad for me."

"Alright." Marcus said with a slight sight. "But I do it for the sake of your health." He added jokingly.

"You certainly don't expect an old woman to come down these steps now do you?" Mrs. Mason scolded. "Especially with how bad the athirst in my legs are."

"Of course not." Marcus replied and looked nervously at the steps. It was going to prove interesting trying to get up the steps while pulling two young turtle children with him. Luckily they were able to keep with him as they went up the few steps of the stoop, so there was no problem.

Once at the top of top, Marcus pulled Donatello's hand up to his pants pocket and hooked it there before letting of it. At first the young turtle was confused as to why the human did this, but he dared not to let go of the pocket.

With his right hand free, the young man was able to take the bag of cookies from Mrs. Mason. "I thank you and my daughter thanks you." Then he did the same thing with Michelangelo's hand as he had done with Donatello's. With both hands free he pulled his shoulder bag in front of him, placed the cookies into, and put it back behind him.

How torturous it was for the two young turtles to be under that cloak, smelling the fresh baked cookies. In fact, Michelangelo wanted the cookies so bad that he let go of the man's pocket so that he could get into bag. But Marcus proved to have lighting fast reflexes by snatching the hand before it got to far away and placing back onto the pocket. Before letting go the young man gave the little turtle hand a slight squeeze with his thumb, as if to say 'Don't let go again' and it surprised the little orange masked turtle. Nobody but his father had ever disciplined him before.

"Is something the matter?" Mrs. Mason asked curiously. "You pulled your hand so quickly into your cape like you were grabbing your leg."

"N…no." Marcus replied nervously. "I had a sudden itch, that's all." He pulled his hands out to show no problem.

"Since you're up here." Mrs. Mason quickly gathered up her platter of cookies. "Have one to go."

Marcus rolled his eyes while he took two in a way for trying to make it like he took one. "Thank you." He laughed.

"Why you little sneak." Mrs. Mason chuckled. "Just cause I wear glasses does not mean I can't see."

"These maybe the only two cookies I'll ever get." Marcus said in defense while pulling his hands back under the cloak. He took a cookie into each hand and held them in front of the young turtles.

At first neither turtle knew what to make of it, but smelling the delicious cookies made it hard to resist. After wiping the drool from their mouth with their free hand, they took the cookie from the human hands and scarf them down.

Marcus stifled a chuckle, because if he laughed Mrs. Mason would probably wonder why. "Well I should be getting home now to Cherish before she gets into any trouble." He knew that soon the two little turtles would start to get antsy, like all children do, if he didn't get moving soon.

"Of course dear." Mrs. Mason replied. "Give that little girl of yours a kiss for me and don't hesitate to come over with her to visit."

"Thanks for the cookies again." Marcus took the young turtles' hands again and with some strange maneuvering managed to get them back down to the sidewalk. Lucky for him Mrs. Mason had already gone back inside her building while the young man fumbled down the stoop.

From Mrs. Mason's place to his, Marcus did not run into any more people that wanted to talk to him. Once inside his apartment complex the young man decided that the three of them should take the elevator rather than tackle three flights of stairs. But he didn't count on the fact that this was the first time Michelangelo and Donatello had ever seen an elevator. When they saw doors opening for them, it looked like a monster opening his mouth to gobble them up.

"NO!" Donatello said sternly while both he and Michelangelo halted before the double doors, refusing to move another inch.

"It's alright." Marcus said calmly. "The elevator is just going to take us up. It'll be better then having to walk up all those stairs."

"Scary." Michelangelo whimpered.

"What's so scary about it?" Marcus asked. "You can make the doors open and close." He quickly hooked Donatello's hand into his pocket and parted the cloak to reveal the two little turtles with his newly freed hand after looking around to see if anyone was walking by. "To show you what I mean, I want you to press that button with arrow point up on it Donatello."

Donatello looked at the button cautiously before looking up at the young man. Marcus nodded his head in encouragement and the little purple masked turtle shyly pushed the button. Immediately the doors opened before them. "I did that?"

"Yes you did." Marcus answered. "Come on." He took Donatello's hand and everyone walked into the elevator. "Now Michelangelo I want you to push that button with the number three on it."

"Me?" Michelangelo questioned and Marcus nodded. "Ok." Gleefully he pushed the button and the doors closed. "I did that." He stated proudly.

Marcus gave a laugh. "Yes you did." Suddenly the elevator car shook before moving up and it terrified the two little turtles. They grasped the young man's pant legs in fear as they felt the floor pushing them up. "You did that too."

"How do I make it stop?" Michelangelo cried. "I don't like the floor moving."

"It'll stop when we get to our destination." Marcus replied. "Hear that dinging sound? That counts off the number of floor we're going." Three dings later the elevator doors opened and the two turtles couldn't get out fast enough. They pushed on the young man's legs to usher him quickly out of the lift. "Alright, alright." Marcus laughed while being pushed. "We're on steady ground now."

"Daddy!" Cherise cried from up the hallway. Then she clasped her hands over her mouth as soon as she saw Donatello and Michelangelo. "What are they doing here?" She whispered when he got to the apartment with them. "I thought you were going to take them home."

"There's a storm coming and it late." Marcus told his daughter. "I thought it better to take them home when there is light and when the storm is gone."

"They are going to stay with us?" Cherise question with excitement. "Is that ok? Are they ok?"

"I'm sure it's ok." Marcus answered. "And their ok too. Just a little dirty. So lets get them into the bathroom so we can get this paint of them."

"Ok. I'll show you where it is." Cherise said cheerfully as she grabbed the two little turtles' hands and pulled them along. "You're my new friends and I'm going to help take care of you. We'll have lots of fun and stuff."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Once in the bathroom Cherise jumped up onto seat cover of the toilet to sit. She watched as her dad ushered the young turtles over to the large white tub, remove their painted cover bandannas and belts, and put those itemsinto the sink. Next the young man loosened his tie enough so he could toss the ends of it behind him. While kneeling next to the tub, he unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and rolled them up pass his elbow.

"Who wants to be first?" Both turtles pointed to each other. "Ok then...I'll just have to let Cherish pick one of you." Both turtles looked at the young girl.

Cherise put a finger in her mouth. "Um…" She took it out so she could point at the turtle that formally wore an orange mask. "I pick him."

Michelangelo looked shocked when Marcus picked him up and placed him into the tub. "It'll be fine." The young man took out a scrub cloth. "It's just a scrub down to get the paint off." He wet the cloth and lathered it with liquid soap. "Hold still now."

Michelangelo not only held still, he froze as the human scrubbed him down. This was the first time someone other than his sensei touched him in such a fatherly way and it made him a bit nervous. Stranger still to the young turtle was the fact that a sweet smell came from the scrub cloth. "Stop."

"What's the matter?" Marcus asked with mild surprise.

"Why are you covering me with honey?" Michelangelo question with a bit of fear. "Are you gonna eat me?"

Marcus laughed a little. "No, of course not. This is baby soap that's made to smell like honey."

"Oh…" Michelangelo replied with a nod before looking a little angry. "I'm not a baby. I'm nine-years-old."

"This soap isn't made just for babies. It's made for kids of any age." Marcus explained. "It's called baby soap, because it's soft enough to use on young skin and make it feel nice."

Once the little turtle was covered head to toe with soap, the young man took up the removable showerhead laying the tub. After test the temperature of the water he hosed down Michelangelo. While he was doing that, Cherise jumped off the toilet and ran out of the bathroom.

Marcus smiled when she came back with two white fluffy towels. "Read my mind." The young man took one off the top and gave it a shake to unfold it so he could wrap it around Michelangelo before lifting him out of the tub. "There you go." He said while setting the wet turtle down on a bath mat. "Now you dry yourself while I take care of your brother."

"Ok." Little Michelangelo said while giving a thumb up. "I bet I can get myself dry faster than Donnie can."

"Cannot." Donatello protested.

"Can too." Michelangelo replied before sticking tongue out. "You count while I dry." He told Cherise.

Cherise was caught by surprised. "…ok." She started counting while the young turtle started rubbing the towel all over him vigorously. "Um…one…two…"

Donatello reached up to the young man. "Hurry, me next." He said while bouncing up and down. "I have to show Mikey that I'm faster."

Marcus gave a chuckling sigh. "So this is what it's like to have more than one kid." He picked up the antsy turtle and placed him the tub.

"All dry." Michelangelo announced as he threw the towel onto the floor. "What's my time?"

"Um…twenty-five seconds." Cherise told him.

"Ha! Beat that." Michelangelo dared.

"Bah, I'll be done in half that time." Donatello replied.

"Hold still or I'll get soap in your eyes." Marcus scolded while holding the slipper turtle still. "I think I liked it better when you two were afraid." He picked up the showerhead once again and hosed down the soaped turtle.

When he was done, Marcus took the other towel from Cherise. He was about to lean over to pick up Donatello, but the young turtle was too eager to wait and jumped up at the young man. Through Marcus was not ready for this move he was able to catch Donatello within the towel, preventing him from getting wet. "Shouldn't do something like that in the bathroom." The young man scolded while placing the young turtle down on the mat. "Someone could get hurt."

"Sorry." Donatello apologized while gather up the towel around him. "Count me?" He asked innocently.

"Alright." Marcus laughed. "Go."

Donatello quickly rubbed himself down. "Done." He declared while holding up the damped towel. "How did I do?"

"Twenty-five seconds." Marcus answered. "It's a tie."

"You really didn't count." Donatello accused.

"Of course I did." Marcus replied.

"I find it unlikely that Mikey and I would get dried in the same amount of time." Donatello stated.

"It's not nice to fight with the judge." Marcus warned jokingly. "Now why don't the three of you go play while I clean up in here."

"I'll show you where the playroom is." Cherise announced while running out of the bathroom.

"Wait for us." The two little turtles cried as they chased after her.

"In here." Cherise pointed to a doorway. "This where I keep all my toys and stuff."

"Wow…" The two turtles breathed when they saw the room.

It was small area, like a bedroom. Opposite the door was a large toy box filled to burst with action figures, playhouses, and dolls. There was a shelf on each side of the wall that held fairytale books, coloring books, and a couple boxes of crayons. There were also some other things on the shelves which surprised the young turtles. It was a couple of electronic devices that had buttons in the looking like the alphabet, shapes, and numbers on it.

Cherise saw them staring at devices and ran over to one of them. "You want to play with this?" She offered while holding it out to them.

Donatello and Michelangelo were confused. They had one similar to it at home, but they never thought to play with given that Master Splinter wouldn't let them. He always said things like that were important learning tools and not something to play with. The main reason he would not let his sons play with electronic devices, was because it was so hard to come by batteries to make them work. Plus if gadget broke it would be hard to find some more working ones to replace them.

"Are you really allowed to play with that?" Donatello questioned skeptically.

"Of course I am, cause it's my toy." Cherise answered. "Here." She pushed the device into Donatello's hands.

"It's a toy. Wait till we tell Master Splinter that he's been teach us with a toy." Michelangelo giggled. "Go on, make it talk."

Donatello was afraid to push a button. When he messed with the one they had at home without permission had earned him a spanking from Master Splinter. He was also scared that if it broke while he did something he would get in trouble with the young girl's father and maybe get a spanking from him.

Cherise noticed that look of fear on the young turtle's face. "It's ok." The young girl flipped a switch to turn it on. "You won't get in trouble so long as you try to be careful with it." She then ran over and gotanother electronic device for the other turtle to play with. "Here you go."

Michelangelo took the toy, but he was surprised by the gesture. Not only was he given a toy in somewhat mint condition, but also that it was given to him free and with out any pouting. He was use to having to fight his older brothers, wait until they were bored with play, or until Master Splinter ordered them to share. The only time his older brothers would share with him andDonatello freely was when they had thoroughly trashed the toy.

With such precious bounty in their hot little hands, Donatello and Michelangelo had a seat on the floor to play. After a while they go tried of playing with the electronic toys, so they moved over to playing with the things in the toy box with Cherise. While they played, the two turtles were starting to enjoy this freedom without older brothers. There was no name-calling, no fight over who got what, or who had to share what. Everyone was kind to one another and thing was offered with a smile.

But as the young turtles continued to play the novelty of not having their brothers around started to wear off. At one point they were coming across toys that they knew their brothers would have wanted to play with and soon two turtles were wishing they were there play with them. This made them feel so sad that they no longer wanted to play. Donatello and Michelangelo just sat in the middle of the room, staring at the toys they had brought out.

Cherise suddenly noticed that she was the only one playing. "What's the matter?" She asked curiously, but neither turtle answered. "Daddy!" The little girl ran out of the room towards the kitchen. "Daddy something's the matter with the turtles."

"Oh?" Marcus was in front of the stove cooking. "Do they look sad?"

"Yeah…"

"Then they're probably homesick."

"They are? Why?"

"Wouldn't you be if you were away from home and couldn't come back? Wouldn't you miss me?"

"Yeah…. So what do we do to make them feel better until they can go home?"

"Make them comfortable. Like giving them something to eat." Marcus took a pot of the stove andput it on a counter. "Go tell them dinner is ready."

"Ok." Cherise ran back into the playroom. "Come on. It's time to eat."

Thinking about food made the young turtles forget about their sadness, because they realized that they were very hungry. They jumped up onto their feet and followed the young girl out into the kitchen where four place settings sat on a small kitchen table. In the center of the table were three dishes. One was a salad made of spinach leaves, button mushrooms, and chopped tomatoes. Another dish was a large bowl of cheesy macaroni and the last was a meatloaf.

Donatello and Michelangelo liked the place setting. The plates looked like animals with sections that separate food. The forks were small enough to fit in their hands and had little cartoon prints on them. Back at home they only had plates that had no boarders to section off food so their food would touch, which they didn't really like, and their forks were kind of too big to handle. But the reason they had such things, was because those were only the kind of things Master Splinter could find on his scavenging hunts.

Once everyone was seated at the table, Marcus started to dish out the food. Michelangelo and Donatello looked at the salad that was spooned in front of them. Their faces scrunched up in as they poked at it with their fork.

"What's the matter?" The young man asked.

"Um…I'm allergic to spinach." Donatello said timidly.

Marcus turned a little white. "I should have asked if you two hand any allergies." He started to take the salad back.

"Me too." Michelangelo chimed. "I'm allergic to spinach too." He held his plate up to the young man. "Better take mine back too."

Marcus stopped and eyed them both. "Are you really allergic?" Both turtles shook their head slowly. "You know you should lie about something like that, it's not funny. You had me scared there."

"We did?" Michelangelo questioned. "We didn't mean to. How did we scare you?"

"Bad things happen to people with allergies." Marcus explained. "They can't breathe cause their throats swell up and sometimes they could even die."

"We're sorry." Donatello apologized. "It's just that we don't like spinach."

"I like spinach." Cherise announced. "But I don't like tomatoes or mushrooms."

"I like mushrooms." Donatello replied. "And Mikey likes tomatoes."

"I'll trade you guys for the stuff you don't like for the stuff I don't like." Cherise suggested. "Is that alright daddy?"

"I suppose it would be alright for tonight." Marcus said with a slight sigh. "But you three are eating everything else with no fuss or there will be no dessert."

"Ok." The three children answered while passing their disliked food around to the ones that wanted it.

The rest of dinner went on without complain. After having Mrs. Mason's cookies with milk for dessert, Cherise took the young turtles out into the living room to watch television while Marcus did the dishes. As they flipped through the stations, Michelangelo and Donatello noticed that there seemed to be more than they had back at home.

"How did ya get so many stations?" Michelangelo asked.

"We got cable." Cherise answered. "But even with the many stations we got, there are times when nothing is on."

"You mean like now." Michelangelo said while got through all the stations again. "So now what?"

"Watch a video." Cherise said as she went to put a tape into the VCR that was built into the television.

"Is that what that little slot is for?" Michelangelo questioned.

"I told you all that, but you didn't believe me." Donatello retorted. "You all thought it was some kind of slot for a shelf."

"It doesn't matter, we don't have any tapes anyway." Michelangelo replied.

"You guys want some tapes?" Cherise asked. "I have tapes that are the same and there are some daddy and I don't watch. You can have those, right daddy?"

"Sure they can." Marcus answered from the kitchen. "At least they'll get used."

"Thank you!" Michelangelo and Donatello shrieked together.

Cherise had already pulled out small bunch of videotapes before her dad gave his approval. "We'll have to put them in boxes so that you guys can carry them."

The two young turtles looked through all the tapes. "Hey this was my favorite movie." Michelangelo cried. "And here's one of your favorite shows." He held out a tape to his brother.

"Cool." Donatello picked up another tape. "Here's something Raph and Leo would like."

"Who's are they?" Cherise asked.

"Their our brothers." Michelangelo answered, a little depressed.

"Do you have any more brothers?" Cherise question. "How about sisters?"

"No." Donatello replied just as gloomy as his brother.

"You're sad again." Cherise observed. "Why?"

"Cause we miss our brothers." Michelangelo sniffled. "But I bet they don't miss us."

"Why wouldn't they miss you?" Marcus questioned as he came over to join them. "It seems that you love each other very much."

"Cause we told them we didn't wanna be their brothers anymore and they said the same thing to us." Donatello answered while wiping his nose with the back of his hand. "They probably like not having us around just like we did and I bet they're not tired of it."

"Aw, I sure that neither one of you meant what you said." Marcus handed the little turtle a tissue. "And I'm sure that they are miss you just as much as you are missing them."

"You really think so?" Michelangelo asked. "I can't believe that."

Marcus picked up Michelangelo and tossed him into the air. "Believe what you want, but I still think they're missing you."

"Me next daddy. Me next." Cherise cried.

"And me too." Donatello yelled. "Please, me too."

Marcus gave a sigh. "Alright, one apiece and than it's time to get ready for bed."

"Aw…but we're not tired." The three children cried.

"Bed." Marcus ordered while tossing Donatello into the air. "It's getting late and if you don't go to sleep you all will be fussy." Next he tossed Cherise. "Now go get ready." Then he ushered the three of them into the bathroom where brought out spare toothbrushes for the little turtles to use.

After all bathroom routines were done, Marcus had the two little turtles go sit out on the couch while he took Cherise to her room to get her in to pajamas. Once the little girl was tucked into bed the young man came out with blankets and pillows so he could set up the couch.

When he was done, Marcus picked up Donatello and put him down on one side of the couch. "There you go." Next he put Michelangelo on the other side of the couch. "Now I want you to go right to sleep with no noise." The young man said while tucking them in.

"Ok." Donatello and Michelangelo replied as they snuggled their heads into the pillows and pretending to snore.

Marcus let out a small groan. '_Please let tonight go smoothly._' He pleaded while heading for his own room so that he could go to bed himself.

Not long after everyone had fallen asleep, a loud crack sound happened. It was enough to make Marcus wake sitting up straight. He looked outside his window in time to see a flash of light bright enough to make it looked like day outside for a second. The thunderstorm was about to began, which meant that there was going to frightened little children in need of comforting.

The young man groaned as he prepare to get out of bed while another loud crack went off outside. But before he could set a foot on the floor his bedroom door flew open to reveal three little shadows. And as fast as the flash of light was, so were the children as they went from door to the full size bed. Donatello clambered onto the left side of the bed, Michelangelo climbed on the right side, and Cherise crawled from the end of the bed. Three pairs of hands grasped the white t-shirt the man wore to sleep, pulling it in different directions.

Marcus leaned to his left to the night table that was by the bed and touch the glass shade of his lamp to turn it on. "It's just Mother Nature showing off what she could do." Marcus told them calmly while touching the shade two more times to make the light even brighter. "You all have nothing to worry about so long as we're inside." Both Donatello and Michelangelo briefly forgot their fear when they saw how the light turned on without a switch. To them it was like Marcus was using magic to make the lamp work.

"I wanna try." Donatello said as he touched the lamp, making it turn off. "Aw." He touched it again and it turned on. "Cool." The young turtle continued to touch the lamp, turning it on and off.

"My turn." Michelangelo said eagerly. "I wanna make the light come on with my touch." But Cherise and Donatello made it hard for him to reach the light. "Hmmm…" He happened looked next to him to see another table with lamp. "Ah." Happily he touched the light continuously like his brother.

"Alright, that's enough of that." Marcus said. "Let us all go back to our beds now." Of course the young man was unintentionally ignored, because the lights were so fascinating.

It wasn't until another crack sound, another flash of light, and the lamps suddenly shutting of without being touched that got the two turtles to stop. Frighten all three children buried their little faces into Marcus's chest. This made the young man realize that there were no going back to own beds. For tonight, he was going to be stuck with three children instead of one and it was going to prove to be an interesting night's sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: And now what you've all been waiting for, how Master Splinter is handling things._

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**Chapter Five**

During the time that their little brothers were gone, Leonardo and Raphael were enjoying their freedom without them. They were able to play with all the toys that still functioned in the lair without having to hear crying to share or claim that it was theirs. Also they had full reign over the television without thewhining over missing favorite shows. But after many hours of uninterrupted fun the two little turtles started to get bored with such freedom. Not soon after they realized that they were actually missing their brothers and wished that they would come back home.

As even more hours passed by two turtles began to worry. It really wasn't like their brothers to leave home without their father, but it was also not like them to stay out so late. There had to be only one reason as to why they had not come home, because something must have happen to them.

"We got to go out and find them." Raphael said anxiously.

"But we don't know which way they went or where to start looking." Leonardo answered with a bit of a panicked tone.

"So how are gonna find them?" Raphael asked. "They could be anywhere."

"We're just going to have to wait for father to come back." Leonardo told him. "Only he could find them."

Meanwhile Master Splinter was just coming home of his quiet retreat…er…scavenger hunt. On his back he carried a large sack full of things he had found. When he got to the door hecaught the scent of his two 'youngest' sons from the wrong side of the entrance, from the outside rather than the in. This scent had to have been recent, because he hadn't taken any of the turtles out on a hunt with for a long time.

Thinking (actually hoping) that the turtles were playing around the entryway, Master Splinter decided to dismiss the scent and opened the door. Immediately the elder rat was jumped by two of his four sons. They grasped the ends of his kimono and there was worry plastered on their faces. Before he could even ask what the matter was, they cried to him about everything that had happen since he left them alone. At first Splinter couldn't understand what they were saying due to them both talking at the same time and through tears.

"We're sorry father. We knew we shouldn't have let them leave, but they wouldn't share and we were so angry with them. They haven't been home for hours and hours and we don't know where they are. Something has happened to them and it's all our fault. We're sorry and we'll take any punishment you'll give ifyou go find them."

Quickly he set his sack down and kneeled so that he could take his frantic sons into his arms. He slowly themrocked them so that they would calm done enough to tell him what he need to know. Once the panic attack was over, Leonardo and Raphael were calm enough to tell their father everything. They told about the plane, the fight, their brothers leaving, and them not coming back for a very long of time.

At first Master Splinter was angry with his sons. The 'younger' ones knew better than to leave home without him and the 'older' ones were supposed to have kept a better eye on them. But he couldn't stay mad, because his mind began to race with worry. It was dark outside when he came home and the smell of rain was in the wind. If he didn't go out looking for them now he could lose their scent and then he would never be able to find them.

Quickly the elder rat pried his two upset sons off him. "Stay here. Having two of you missing is more than enough." He told them sternly as he rose to his feet. "I will be back as soon as Ifind your brothers."

Without another word Master Splinter was out the door and sniffing the ground to find out what directionhis missing sonswent in. Luckily the rain had yet to come, but the thunderingrumbling outsidelet him know that it was threatening to. As he followed his sons' smell the elder rat pushed out any worse scenario thought from his mind, because he believed picturing such bad could mean thatit wouldactually happened. But even if he didn't think about it, it didn't mean that something bad happen to his sons.

Before longMaster Splinter had caught the scent of something else mixed with his sons'. He studied this second scent and he smelled around to get a brief sense of what went down in the area. There was only one conclusion he could draw from what he had found out. His greatest fear had come true, humans had captured his sons.

It took him a moment to collect and calm himself. There was a chance that they weren't taken far, that they weren't in some scientific lab being prodded and poked by men in white coats. There was a chance that he could rescue them or die trying.

But wait, he couldn't die. Though he wanted his missing sons back in his furry arms and hug them tight to his chest, he still had two other sons to care for. If something were to happen to him, how would they survive on their own? And how would the cope with not only losing their brothers, but their father as well?

It saddened him to think this, but if there were no way to save Donatello and Michelangelo he would have to…. No. He wasn't going to think about it. Not till he knew all the facts of the situation. Not till he knew that there was no chance. From this moment on he was going to think positively.

Master Splinter smelled the scents, every scent that had to deal with his sons. Where they stood, who surrounded them, how many were there, where they went. And it was during all this smelling that he was given a sense of hope, because he found that his sons' captors were just a couple of boys. That meant his sons couldn't have gone too far. In fact, they may had befriended the boys and joined above ground to play, which would make the elder rat sorely disappointed in them for making themselves know and staying hidden like he had told them to.

Hearing the thunder go on above him, Master Splinter quickly ran up the ladder for the street. He knew it was only a matter of time before the rain hit and that he could lose the scent when it did. He followed his sons' smell to an abandon building once he was up on street level. Stealthy he dashed over to the building and went down the stairs to a basement apartment.

Carefully Master Splinter opened the door, so as not to alert anyone might be in there. The heavy smell of paint hit his nose, making him a bit sick. Still he entered the building and smelled around to find out what happen. Did his sons throw paint around for their entertainment? He found the chain that once held his young turtles to a pipe. No. His sons were the ones having paint thrown at them. They did not make any friends down below, they were take as plaything for young boys to abused. But there was more than just boys' smell here, there was also a man scent. By the chains was a tool probably used to cut them and wet tissues that were covered with his sons' scent, paint, and the man's scent.

It was here that the elder rat was starting to worry about his two endangered sons, because he now smelled them leaving with the man. He followed the three scents, tracing their path. Back up to street level, down the sidewalk, stop, up stairs to one building, stop, back down the stairs, further down the sidewalk, enter building, enter strange box with double doors, dead end.

Now he had an idea of where his sons were, but unsure as to where exactly. So Master Splinter went back outside to see how big the building was, how many windows did it have. Perhaps he could look through them to see which one held his young turtles captive. But his heart sank when saw that the building was tall and there so many window all around. There was no way he could look through them all before the storm came, there wasn't even an assurance that he would be done by daybreak. How was he going to find them?

While wondering where he was going to start looking, Master Splinter came onto the side of the building that had balconies. A flashed in the sky caused him to look up and something caught his eye about three stories up, two balconies over. Hanging from a hood covering that particular balcony was a rotating hanger, in its clasps were a couple of belts and a couple of bandannas. Could they bethe same ones that his sons wore? There was only one way to find out.

The elder rat shimmed up a drainpipe that was on the side of the building like a spider on a wall and jumped two balconies over to the one with the items. A quick smell told him that they had just been washed, meaning that the scent of his young turtles were gone. But the fact that these items looked so much like the ones they wore made Splinter sure that his children were there. All that was needed to be done was to figure out how to enter the building.

Breaking a window was out, because the noise would alert the people inside. Seeing that the glass door was one of those sliding ones with the flip lock, Master Splinter knew he had to find something thin enough to slip between the door and frame to lift the lock. Thinking of what he could use, the elder absentmindedly put his hand into his pocket to find a playing card he had put in there some time ago. He brought the card out, used it on the door, and successfully popped the lock. Then Splinter silently entered the build after slowly opening the door and closed it behind him while smelling around the room he was. His sons had been in this room, on the couch that was made out like a bed. Made like a bed? Why? Their scent then went from the couch towards a hallway, down the hallway, and into a room with its door wide open.

Quickly Master Splinter went over to the doorway where he smelled his sons, that man who took them, and a young girl. He was in for a surprise when he entered what seemed to be a bedroom. There was the man sleeping in a large bed, his arms stretched out to the sides where his hands almost touched the ends. Donatello was asleep on with his back on the man's left arm, his own left arm following the man's while his right hand grasped the white shirt the man wore. Michelangelo was asleep on his chest on the man's right arm, his right hand clutching the man's shirt as his left arm followed the arm it slept on. Sleeping on her back on the man's chest was the little girl, her head just below his chinand strands of her hair pulled out of abraid were on his face.

At first Master Splinter was shocked to see his sons sleeping with the man and obviously his daughter. He was even more surprised that the man had even let the two turtles getinto his bed. Then the elder rat felt a little hurt that his children could so easily go to theman for comfort from storm as they wouldhave done with him had they been at home. But now was not the time to feel sorry for himself or to be stunned by what he saw. The thunderstorm was going to hit any moment and he had two other sons to get back to.

Splinter went over to where Donatello slept and went to pick him up, but the little turtle's grip on the man's shirt didn't look like was going to loosen while he was asleep. So the elder rat lightly rubbed Donatello's cheek in a way of waking him. The little turtle's eyes twitched before opening slightly. Tiredly he sat up, released the man's shirt and rubbed his sleepy eyes. A thunderclap outside cause the little turtle hiccup a whimper that was followed by a fearful sniffle. Instantly, like it was some kind of reflex, the man's arm jumped up and clasped Donatello's head.

"Safe inside." The manmumbled while gently guiding the little turtle's head to rest on his shoulder and Donatello gave no resistance. He just put his head down, nuzzled his face into the man's shoulder as he grasped the shirt again, and went right back to sleep. The man's arm stayed resting on the young turtle's head, his arm resting on the shell.

Master Splinter gave a sigh of frustration as he moved over to where Michelangelo slept. Like he did with Donatello, Splinter gave the young turtle's cheek a stroke. Half asleep, Michelangelo pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The elder rat reached over to pick up the little turtle, but the lack of weight on his right arm and the pressure on part of his chest alerted the man.

Without opening his eyes, the man asked. "What's the matter? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Do you need a drink of water?"

"No." Michelangelo whispered.

"Then lay back down and go back to sleep." The man replied.

"Ok." Michelangelo yawned as he settled back down and fell asleep again.

Master Splinter put his face into his hand; even asleep his sons were a handful. It was at this point that he made a decision. He was just going to grab his children by the shell and make a run for it. So what if he woke up the man, he was faster than any human. By the time the man untangled himself from his daughter, Splinter would have been out the balcony door as well as being down to street level. Moreover these were his kids and if anyone was going to give such comfort it should be him.

Once again the there was a thunderclap, only this time it brought a shower of rain with it. It was almost like the sky opened up and a faucet was turned on. It was now or never for Master Splinter to do something, but as he reached to snatch up his sons two familiar little voices called to him. "Father?"

Splinter turned to see his other two sons in the doorway to the bedroom. "What you doing here?" He whispered sternly as he pushed them back into the hallway.

"We were watching the news." Leonardo said anxiously. "They said that a really bad storm was coming and that there was going to be chances of flooding. We weren't sure if you knew so we followed after you to tell you."

"Then the sky made a noise and we got so scared that we couldn't move for a moment." Raphael butted in. "But when you went up on top we finally went out you and lost you for a moment. Then you came out of the building and walked up the street, so we followed you again."

"Then you went up the pipe to the balcony and we were scared to follow you up it." Leonardo interjected. "But when the sky made the noise again we didn't want to stay outside where it could get us and climbed up."

"Father, why are Donatello and Michelangelo sleeping with that strange man." Raphael asked worriedly. "Is he making them sleep with him? Are they captured?"

"No they are not captured and no they are not forced to sleep with him." Master Splinter answered calmly. "They were scared of the storm just like you are and the man is doing for them what I do."

"Oh." Both turtles answered solemnly.

"Go out onto the couch and wrap yourself up in the blankets there." Master Splinter told them. "I will join you in a minute."

The elder rat went back into the bedroom and looked at his sons on the bed. They were sleeping so peacefully, it made no sense to disturbed them. His other two sons were with him now and it was storming pretty well outside, thus there was no rush to go home. But he didn't just want to stay without leaving any warning of his presence for fear the man might chase him out, because he was so much bigger than the young turtles. So before he left he found a pad of paper on a dresser and with a pen wrote, 'Father is here'. Then he went back out to his sons who were huddled on the couch, under the blankets. With a slight smile, Master Splinter took them up into his arms.

Leonardo and Raphael nuzzled into his furry chest as they tried to fall asleep. It was hard for them, because they were worried. They had seen the room with neat toys covering the floor. There was those 'videotapes' that had their brothers' favorite shows they could watch them any time they wanted. And what about the girl? Bet she was kind, that she wouldn't put down anyone and be happy to share anything. She probably wouldn't tell anyone she wished they weren't related.

Basically the one thought going their heads was, 'Would their brothers becomimg home?'

* * *

_A/N: Welp, Donatello and Michelangelo have been found. But now there is worry on if they will want to go home or stay with Marcus and Cherise. MaybeI'll make them stay. I dunno._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Early the next morning, somewhere around six o'clock, Marcus woke up with numb arms and a sore chest. He looked around him and thought, '_Darn. I was hoping it was all a dream._' But it wasn't, there _were_ three children sleeping on him and two of them were turtles. '_This is going to be fun_.' Marcus reflected as he realized that it was going to be quite a trick extracting himself out from under the children while trying not to wake them in the process. '_I hear you laughing up there mom and dad. This is pay back for every time my siblings and I have done this, isn't? I know you can see this so keep laughing it up._'

After an attempted deep sigh, Marcus slowly slid Michelangelo off his right arm. Then he pulled his arm free from under Donatello. Now all that was left was getting Cherise off him and himself off the bed. It took a little creative maneuvering, but he miraculously mange to succeed with both goals.

Now that he was free, the young man suddenly felt excruciating pain in both his arms. The numb feeling had worn off and he could feel the blood pumping its way through them. In a rush to get something for the pain from his bathroom down the hall, Marcus failed to see the note on his dresser. So he wasn't prepared for the surprise in his living room. He didn't see a large lump and a couple of little ones under blankets on his couch. The young man didn't even see a long tail that could have been attached to the large lump. It wasn't until he was coming out of the bathroom, heading for the kitchen, that he noticed there was someone, or something, there.

Carefully Marcus inched his way over to the couch and cautiously picked up an edge of the blanket. Of course he wasn't prepared for what was under there. "Oh geez!" The young man gasped as he fell onto his rear. For a brief moment his mind race as to why there was a giant rat in his house, asleep on his couch. But then he remembered Michelangelo telling him that his father was a giant rat. "Oh yeah." Now the young man wondered how the large rat managed to get into the building and when?

Seeing that the rat did not look wet, it had to been before the storm hit last night. '_Speaking of the storm, was it still raining?_' Marcus looked towards his balcony. It wasn't thundering, but it wasn't exactly a great day to be out of the house either. While looking out, it was there that he saw the catch to the sliding door unlocked and a playing card on the floor. '_So that's how he did it, pretty smart._' Figuring that the large rat had a hard time last night worrying about his sons, the young man decided to let him sleep for a long he needed to or wanted.

Now today was still a workday, but because he had guests in the house and outside didn't look fit for anyone, Marcus decided to phone in sick. He took a cordless phone out of its cradle and went into the playroom so as not to disturbed anyone while he made his call.

"You have reached 'Animal Hospital and Sitters'." A computerized female voice said. "We pamper you pets and kept them healthy too. Sorry, but we are close for the day. If your pet is having an emergency medical problem please call our Animal ER clinic."

Marcus turned off the phone. "Looks like I'm not the only one who didn't want to go out in this weather." He was about to go out back where it belong when he found two turtles, each one holding a piece of colored cloth, looking up at him from the doorway. "Oh, hello there."

"'Ello." The two little turtles answered timidly.

Marcus bent down onto one knee. "Let me guess, you guys' names are Leonardo and Raphael."

Both little turtles looked at him with wonderment. "How did you know our names? Did our brothers tell you?"

"Nope." Marcus shook his head. "I just knew."

"Like magic?" The turtle with the blue cloth asked.

"If you like to think it that way." Marcus answered. "Now which one are you?"

"Leonardo." The little turtle answered with a laugh. "And this is Raphael." He pointed to his brother.

"My name is Marcus." The young man told them. "Now aren't you two up kind of early?"

Leonardo pointed at the young man. "You're up."

"You have a point there." Marcus said with a bit of a chuckle. "But I have to be."

"Why?" Raphael asked.

"Well usually I have a job to get ready for." Marcus explained. "Plus I have a daughter who has to go to school. So I have to get her ready, her stuff put together, and have some breakfast for her to eat." He looked down at the phone. "Speaking of school, I'm going to call in sick for her too. Don't want her out in this weather."

Briefly forgetting the two turtles, the young man used the phone again. "Due to the weather, we are closed for the day." A computerized voice said.

Marcus gave a small laugh. "Should have known." Then he felt a tugging on his shirtsleeve and turned to see it was one of the turtles. "Yes?"

"Are those…really toys?" Leonardo pointed to the electronic toys that were on the floor. "Can…we…um…play with them?"

Marcus mused over the question for a moment before answering. "I suppose so. So long as you are quiet."

With soft childish giggles, the two turtles dropped the cloths they carried while running over to the toys. Happily they turned them on and pushed random buttons to make the devices talk. As they play Marcus went out into the living room to put the phone away, only to find his furry guest awake. He was wearing a magenta kimono and was folding the blankets before placing them neatly at one end of the couch.

When the giant rat saw his host he gave a slight bow while saying, "Good morning Mr…"

"Marcus, just Marcus." The young man answered. "And morning to you too. I hope you slept well."

"I did." The giant rat answered. "My children call me Splinter."

"Really." Marcus said with a cocked eyebrow. "An interesting name I'd have to say. I chalk it up there with naming kids after Renaissance artists."

"Yes, well, it was the first names I saw in an old art book I found in the sewers after our transformation." Splinter explained.

"Transformation?" Marcus questioned. "So you weren't really born this way?"

"No." Splinter shook his head. "I was once a rat and my sons were once turtles. Somehow we change into what we are now."

"Are there anymore like you below the sewers?" Marcus inquired with great interest.

"If there are, I have yet to meet them." Splinter answered. "I find it most strange that you are not scared of our appearance or that you would so welcome your home to my lost sons."

"Call it a parental understanding." Marcus replied kindly. "At first I didn't know what to make of things when Cherish called up, telling me about two little turtle boys being in trouble. But when I saw them it was like something inside me want to just take care of them." He gave a small chuckle. "Course I didn't expect them to crawl into my bed and stay there. But they were so scared that I couldn't make them go back out here during the storm."

"I know that feeling." Splinter also gave a laugh. "If you think three is tough, you should try four. Waking up with numb arms is fine, I can still get around, but numb legs are another thing."

"And I use to think that my little Cherish was a handful." Marcus gave a slight sigh. "It was so hard…not having a mother around for her. I didn't think I could raise a child on my own. I mean when she came out she no bigger than my hands." The young man cupped both his together, showing them to the elder rat. "No bigger than this. And the doctors said there might be complications, because she was born early." He looked down at his hand, still cupped. "But when I held her for the first time and she looked up at me with this…this…need. The need for caring, for shelter…for love, I just couldn't accept impossible as an answer. I was going to do whatever it took to raise her."

Splinter felt touched by how the man explained his accepted role. It made him reflect back to when he first got his sons. At first it looked like it was going to be easy to care for them when he was just a rat and they were just turtles. But when they mutated into something more…advanced, the rat started to have serious doubts on if he could live up to the task of being a father. But he had to admit that when he saw four pairs of eyes looking up at him with that need that Marcus described, he too found it hard to think impossible. That he could not, would not, let doubt set in.

A little voice asked. "What happen to Cherish's mom?" Both fathers turned around to see little Michelangelo standing in the entryway from the hall to the living room. He rubbed his sleep eyes while wandering over to Splinter. "I missed you."

Splinter picked up the little turtle and gave him a peck on the top of his head. "I missed you too." He sat down with him in his lap. "But that is not a very nice thing to ask."

"Why not?" Michelangelo questioned. "If he were to ask what happen to our mom, we'd tell him."

"You don't know what happen to her." Splinter reminded.

"Oh yeah." Michelangelo answered.

"Is your brother still asleep?" Splinter inquired.

"No, he raced Cherish to the bathroom." Michelangelo replied before looking up at the young man. "If I can't ask about the mom, how about why you call your daughter Cherish? She says that it's not really her name, that it's a nickname."

"Because she is the most cherished thing I have now." Marcus explained. "You can take anything away from me by my daughter." He took a seat next to the rat and turtle. "When Kerry, my wife, was pregnant I would put my hand on her stomach and say, 'Carry (Kerry) Cherish moments'. She'd ask me what I mean by saying that one day. I told her that she and our daughter to be were the best moments in my life. That it would never matter if I don't accomplish anything else in life, because I feel completed having known them."

There was little cough and the three on the couch turned to see three at the entryway. The cough had come from Cherise. "What did happen to mommy?" She asked quietly.

Marcus bit his lip, he wasn't sure if now was the time to tell or not. But he couldn't ignore the question and she did have a right to know. "Come here." He finally said while patting his lap.

Cherise raced over to her father with the other three turtles following her. The young man picked up his daughter and put her in his lap while the turtles clamber around Splinter on the couch. Donatello stood behind the rat so he could put his little arms around his father's neck. Splinter put a hand on the back of his son's head and gave a quick kiss on the turtle's cheek. This was all that both needed to do to express their feelings towards the brief separation.

"Ok." Marcus let out a slight sigh. "While you were in mommy's stomach, she had really bad headaches that hurt her very much. One day she had to go into the hospital, because her head hurt too much for her to stay at home. At the hospital a line that carried blood burst in her head." The young man touched a part of Cherise's head. "Right about there, I think." He then brushed some hair from his daughter's face. "Well her head filled up with blood and she died." Marcus undid the messy braid the little girl had and smoothed out the hair while he continued to talk. "The doctors had to take you of mommy's stomach. But because you were born a little early, they had to put you in a special place to make sure you would be alright and after a couple months you were fine."

For a while nobody said anything. Marcus just kept stroking his daughter's hair while the turtles snuggled up with Splinter a bit. Really nobody knew what to say at this point. Splinter understood what it was like to feel loss, being that he had lost his master. However death to children as young as Cherise and the turtles was not much of an understood concept. They understood it to be something a person had, like a disease. But this disease would make the person go way for a very long time, never to come back again. They also understood that this was disease they would never want their fathers to have, because they wouldn't want them to go away forever.

Not being able to take the sorrowful silence any longer, Marcus suddenly blew a raspberry into Cherise's cheek. She let out a squeal of delight for as long as the blow went on. When he was done Marcus put her down. "Alright enough of that. Let's have some breakfast now, shall we?"

"What are we having?" Cherise asked eagerly. "Waffles?"

"With fruit toppings and whip cream." Marcus added. "Now go get dress." He gave her a loving swat on the bottom.

"Yay!" The little girl cried as she ran over to two of the turtles. She didn't know who she grabbed, not that she cared, and pulled them off the couch. "Come on. We have to wash our faces before we can eat." The ones she grabbed were Leonardo and Raphael. Not liking to be pulled by the young girl, they yanked their hands from her. "Huh?" Cherise cocked her head to one side. "What's the matter?"

"We don't know you." Leonardo snapped.

"Yeah, we don't know you." Raphael copied.

The little girl was not discouraged. "Ok. I understand." She grabbed the hands of the other turtles. "Come on." Donatello and Michelangelo put up no resistance as she pulled them with her to the bathroom. They looked forward to having waffles with fruit and whip cream. They've fruit on stuff, but never had whip cream. In fact they didn't even know what it was. Was it cream that was bad and got spanked?

Leonardo and Raphael watched with shocked expression as their brothers went off with the little girl. Did they like her better than them for a sibling? Worried they chased after their brothers to the bathroom.

Splinter observed with mild amusement. To see two of his sons get along so well with a human made him doubt if all humans were bad. "Makes you wish that kids ruled the world, doesn't it?" Marcus asked.

Splinter looked at the man curiously. "What makes you say something like that?"

"Race, color, species. It makes no different to them so long as they make friends and can play." Marcus answered. "If they have an argument, they just go their separate ways. There would be no fight, no wars. Just kids playing with kids."

"I don't know. Passed experience has shown that there are some adults who are able to ignore such things." Splinter gave the young man a bit of a smile. "Besides, can you image a world run by children? It would be a messy place."

"I suppose so." Marcus laughed while going into the kitchen so he could prepare breakfast.

Splinter got up from the couch so he could collect all the bandannas and leather belt that belong to his sons. He was glad that he had the state of mind to bring in Donatello and Michelangelo's stuff from outside before they got too wet from the rain. Once his sons had washed their faces they were back out in the living room, putting on what identified them and separated each from the other. Cherise was out dressed in her usual clothing by the time the first batch of waffles was put on the table.

Each child got there own animal plate and little fork placed in front of them. This time the plates had no dividers to separate any food. Then when they got a waffle a piece put on their plate, syrupy fruit was placed on top of the golden squares. After that a cylinder can was shaken and out came white foamy looking stuff that went all over the fruit. Splinter had to scold Michelangelo to keep him from continuingly say that the can was passing gas with ever squirt.

Quickly the children ate what they were given and begged for more before the fathers had a chance to get halfway through their own. Splinter was a little set off by the way his sons acted. He worried that their hunger might put Marcus and his daughter out, but the young human father was more than happy to supply more. However he did keep an eye on his rat guest to make sure that he would not overstepping his bounds.

Once the meal was done, Cherise started to pull Donatello and Michelangelo towards the playroom. But Splinter's stern voice said, "It is time for us to go."

"What?" The little girl said with shock. "But…but can't they stay for a little while longer." She was so busy thinking of things for them to do that day that she forgot they eventually had to go home. "Please stay longer. Please?"

"Yes, please." Michelangelo and Donatello begged. "Let us stay."

Hearing their brothers beg to stay scared Leonardo and Raphael. If their brothers wanted to stay it meant they didn't want to go home. And if their brothers didn't want to go home then that would mean that they didn't want live with them and their father anymore. So they figure the only remedy to the situation was for them to protest to staying and go home right away.

"No. Let's go now." Leonardo said while tugging on his father's kimono.

"Yeah, I miss home a lot." Raphael added while joining his brother in pulling on the rat's kimono.

Splinter looked down at his two worried sons. His gaze moved over to his pleading ones and then he looked over at the little girl, whose face was busying trying to think of way to get her new friends to stay longer. Before the father rat could say anything, she pointed out the balcony window.

"Look. Look." Cherise cried. "It's raining really badly. You can't go out in the rain or you all with get sick. Right daddy?" She looked at Marcus for back up.

The young man put up his hands. "Don't bring me into this." He said. "It is up to Splinter on if he wants his family to stay or to go. Whatever he decides, we respect. Understand?"

Cherise's lower lip stuck out. "Ok." She said sadly.

Splinter let out a sigh while he took a look outside. It was raining, but it wasn't too hard. If he hurried his sons now, they could get home before it got worse. Or so he thought, because a large flash of light happened outside and it was followed by a loud thunder. Cherise grasped her father's pant leg while the four turtles grasped their father's kimono.

"Guess that answers that." Splinter said with a sigh.

"Thank you father." Donatello and Michelangelo said gleefully while releasing the rat's clothing. This time it was they who grabbed the little girl and pulled her long with them.

Both Leonardo and Raphael stood by their father, stunned. Did he know what he just done? Now Donatello and Michelangelo would never want to go home again…unless the two older turtles tried to convince them that their home was better than here. In order to do that, they would have to show that they were going to be better brothers than Cherise's 'sister' act. Wasting no time, Leonardo and Raphael rushed to the playroom.

* * *

_A/N: Well we all know what happened to mom. Plus it now looks like Leo and Raph have something to worry about. They don't know what we know, do they? I wonder how they'll act towards their brothers now._


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Wow, this chapter came out pretty quick. 00;_

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Chapter Seven

Slightly concerned about what his 'older' sons were up to, Master Splinter followed after them into the playroom. He was going to watch from the doorway until he deemed it safe enough to leave them alone. Meanwhile Marcus put the breakfast dishes into the washer before get dressed himself.

At first things were going well in the playroom. Each little one had a toy of their own that they were playing with. However Leonardo and Raphael kept a watchful eye on Cherise to see what movements she was going to make towards their brothers. They wanted to be ready to foil any efforts to 'buy' their love.

The mistaken attempt that was when Cherise wandered over to play with Michelangelo. He was playing with one of the alphabetical electronic toys and shewanted to know ifhe would like to learn a game that she had made up with her father for the machine. But before the little orange clad turtle could say anything, Raphael pushed his way in between them. He claimed that he hadfirst dibs playing with his brother. This move surprised both Cherise and Michelangelo, but neither one said anything against it.

Watching the little girl go away from his youngest brother made Raphael feel both relieve that he was able to intervene in time and satisfied that she wasn't going to put up much of a fuss. Her reluctances to fight showed she really didn't care aboutMichelangelo like he did. As he sat down next to his brother, Raphael noticed that he had the machine upside down.

"That's not how you play with it." The little red clad turtle scolded. "Here let me show you how it's done." He reached for the toy.

"No." Michelangelo held the toy out of reach of his brother. "I want to play with it this way." He said sternly.

"But that's not how it works." Raphael stated heatedly. "Ya can't read the words upside down." He made another attempt to take the toy away.

"I know that." Michelangelo snapped. "I'm _trying_ to learn to read upside down." He fell on his side trying to keep the toy away from his brother.

"Give it to me so I can show you how it's done." Raphael ordered while leaning across his brother to get at the device.

"No." Michelangelo cried as he moved about to knock his brother off.

This only made Raphael madder and he jumped to his feet with a raised fist. "Why I oughta…" He looked down to see Michelangelo cowering while waiting for the expected angry blow. "Uh…" Raphael looked around at everyone in the room. Leonardo and Donatello looked at him anxiously while Cherise clasped her hands to her mouth. He knew that _she_ would never throw a blow to get what she wanted, so neither should he if he wanted to show what a good brother he was. "Ok…" The little turtle finally said as he lowered his fist. "Then can I learn with you?" He asked while sitting back down.

Michelangelo slowly sat back up with the toy in his lap and looked at his brother carefully. "I…guess so." He wanted to make sure that he wasn't being trick into letting his guard down enough for the toy to be snatched from him. But Raphael made no attempt to steal the toy away and soon the two turtles were having fun.

Master Splinter managed to stifle a sigh of relief, he didn't want the children know he was watching them. Though he was glad that a fight was avoid, he couldn't help wonder what made Raphael change his mind about hitting Michelangelo. This was not the usual way his hothead son was. In the past it would have taken the father rat to pulling the angry young turtle off his brother in order to stop the fight and time-outs were required for both.

The father rat's wondering was interrupted by Marcus, who came over to secretly watch the children play with him. "I have to admit that I'mglad you decided to stay." He whispered. "Thanks to the neighborhood bully we had around, she hasn't been able to make many friends. This is the happiest I've ever seen her." Splinter felt a slight twinge of guilt, because eventually they would have to leave.

Back in the room Cherise was talking to Donatello while he played with a bucket of army men. The two of them were making plans of having a small battle between the two of them and they were setting the little green men up in to positions for their attack. Unfortunately a ball that Leonardo was playing with 'accidentally' landed in the middle of there area and scatter the army men all over the place. When he came over to collect the ball, he asked if he could play too. Donatello agreed and the blue clad turtle sided with his brother against the young girl. In no time they had their army up while Cherise was still collecting her half of the men. As she put her men up, Leonardo started play attacking his brother's men. Donatello immediately started to play fight back, ignoring his human friend when she was done.

Now Cherise was starting to feel a little put out, but she did her best not to show it. She understood that the four turtles were brothers and that obviously they would want to play with each other. Especially after they had that scare of losing them. So instead of feeling sorry for herself, the little girl started to play with her half the army men on her own. To make it more interesting she added a ball and jacks to her little battlefield.

After a while the turtles older and younger switched with each other. Michelangelo and Leonardo started to play a memory card game while Donatello played board game with Raphael. Once again Cherise was alone to play with herself, so she curled up on a beanbag chair with a book. But seeing the turtles having so much fun with each otherwhile she was leftuninvited to play made her feel too sad to concentrate on what she read. Soon Cherise gave up on the book and decided to glumly wander out into the living room to watch television. Marcus followed after to give comfort to his daughter while Splinter stayed to watch his turtle sons play. He wondered how long it would take forthem to discover that they had hurt their young host's feelings.

Meanwhile in the room, Leonardo and Raphael had seen the little girl leave in defeat. Feeling triumphant they slyly exchange thumbs up. They had managed to keep their brothers from her clutches, ensuring that their siblings would want to come home now that they saw how nice their older brothers were and how much better they would be than Cherise.

However it wasn't long before Donatello and Michelangelo started to feel smothered by their brothers showering them with so much affection. Yes they missed them yesterday and yes they were loving the attention, but there is a point when they started to show too much. Plus they wanted to play with Cherise, because she wasnew and different. They could play with their brothers anytime they wanted back at home whereas they not do the same with Cherise. So when they noticed that the little girl was no longer in the room, they wanted to go look for her.

"Where are you going?" Raphael asked when his purple clad brother got up from their game.

"I'm going to find Cherise." Donatello replied while going over to Michelangelo and tapped him on the shoulder. "Come on."

"But Mikey's winning." Leonardo protested. "He can't go until we're finish."

"Aw, you'll beat me in no time." Michelangelo replied while waving a hand at him.

"But…but…" Leonardo didn't now how to reply. "Wait!" He scrambled onto his knees and grabbed his brother's arm. "You can't go yet."

"Can too." Michelangelo retorted. "You can't tell me what to do."

"But why would you want to go play with _her_ when ya got us here now?" Raphael questioned.

"Because we want to." Donatello replied. "She's been really nice to us and stuff."

"We're nice to you. Look, we're playing and sharing and everything." Leonardo pointed out. "Forget her and play with us." He tried to pull Michelangelo back down into a sitting position while Raphael grasped onto Donatello.

"Let go!" Both the purple clad and orange clad turtles replied angrily. "We don't want to play with you anymore." They took hold of the hands that held them and peeled them off.

Leonardo and Raphael watched in shock as their brothers ran out of the room call the little girl. They fell back on to their rears, their mouths trembling as they fought back tears. They felt hurt that their brothers had abandoned them like they did, but they would not cry. Big turtle boys did not cry.

Master Splinter to enter the room and kneeled down next to them, placing a hand on their shells. This caused the two little turtles to lose their fight with their emotions. They buried their face into the rat father's kimono. "Come on, what is the matter?"

In one sobbing breath they let it all out and Splinter almost didn't understand what they said. "We played with them so they would forget all about that girl. But they don't want to play with us, they want to play with her. And now they won't want to come home." After saying all that, they gasped for air.

"Nonsense." Master Splinter replied. "Of course they will want to come home."

Leonardo and Raphael pulled their faces free from their father's robe, looking at him. "Why would they?" They asked between sniffles. "They have everything there. There's toys and whip cream and…"

"Yes there are nice thing here, but there is one thing missing." Master Splinter said kindly. "You two."

"But why would we matter?" Leonardo inquired. "They don't want us anymore."

"Yeah." Raphael piped. "They want that girl more than us."

"You are their brothers and they will always want you just like you will always want them." Master Splinter told them. "Sure you four may fight and you may get angry with each other, but that is the way of brothers."

"So you mean they don't hate us?" The two turtles questioned.

"Who said we did?" Donatello and Michelangelo questioned from the playroom door."We missed you guys yesterday." Michelangelo told his older brothers. "It was fun and all for a little while, but we still missed you.

"So…you'll be coming back home?" Leonardo asked and his younger brothers nodded.

The look of relief came onto Raphael and Leonardo's faces. Their brothers weren't going to leave them and they knew, no matter what, that they weren't going to leave them either.

Suddenly Cherise appeared by the door. Her eyes were a little red, but she had a big smile on her face. "So are you ready to watch a video now?"

"You bet." Donatello and Michelangelo answered. They ran out into the living room.

Cherise looked at the other two turtles before dashing over to them and grab their hands. "Come on." This time the two turtles didn't take their hands from hers. Instead they let her pull them from Splinter's lap and out to where the television was.

Out in the living room, in front of the couch were two large beanbag chairs pushed together. Michelangelo was snuggled down one while Donatello sat on the other. After letting go of the hands she held, Cherise ran over to the bag chairs and plopped down in the middle, where the seats met. Without hesitation Leonardo and Raphael jumped on the sides of the strange bag chairs. Their landing bounced those already sitting up into the air. Giggles came from all five children before the chanting of 'Movie! Movie!'

Two movies and a couple television shows later made it time for lunch. Sandwiches were made to the _exact_ way each child wanted. No mayonnaise for Michelangelo. He would squish it out of the sandwich, because it was fun. Raphael's had to be cut sideways, because diagonal was for girls and babies. Leonardo wouldn't eat a sandwich with crust while Donatello wouldn't eat one with lettuce. And Cherise wouldn't eat hers unless it was on a certain kind of bread.

After lunch the children went back to the beanbag chairs to watch another movie, but their full bellies made them very sleep. Before the opening credits finished passing on the screen they were asleep. Marcus helped Splinter removed bandannas and belts off the turtles before a blanket taken off the couch was placed on the slumbering children. Afterwards Marcus turned on classical music to keep an atmosphere soothing enough to allow maximum napping time. That way the two fathers could enjoy some quiet time drinking tea and talk about the joys, along with the troubles, of being the parents. They talked about how there are times they wished they could keep their little ones young and what they looked forward to when their children grow up.

By around three o'clock the children slowly started to wake up. Mouths were wiped free from drool, hair was brushed,bandannas and beltswere put back on. Then the children ran back into the room full of toys to play. This time nobody was left out or shunned, everyone had fun playing with everyone else. In fact they were having so much funthat they didn't realized that the weather outside had cleared up. However Splinter didn't fail to see it.

Once the sun had set the father rat clapped his hands to get their attention. "Alright my sons, it time for us to go while the conditions are right." Five pairs of eyes looked at him pitifully, in the hopes that maybe he would change his mind and say they could stay longer. But Splinter was not moved. "Come along now, let us get this mess cleaned up."

"Yes father." All four turtles said as they sluggishly went about picking up the toys. They figured that if they went slowly, they could squeeze out a least a couple more minutes.

When the room was clean, Master Splinter ushered his sons out into the living room. "Now thank our hosts for everything and we'll be on our way."

"Thank you." Turtles said as they went to give Marcus and his daughter a hug.

Marcus kneeled down to receive his hug from each turtle. "You are very welcome." Leonardo and Raphael gave him a quick hug, but Michelangelo and Donatello hugged him the longest.

Cherise hesitated to hug anyone. "You…you guys will be back, right?" She asked father rat. "I'll see you maybe tomorrow or maybe the day after that?"

Master Splinter bent down to her level and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I don't think so little one." He said gently. "I'm afraid we can not chance coming here again. If we went to and from our home it will be found. Then we will have no safe place to stay."

"But…but…" Cherise began to stammer while fighting back the tears. "They are my friends. How will I play with them if they don't come over?" The little girl wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Maybe I can come over and play at your guy's place? I'll bring over a whole bunch of stuff…and…" She knew the answer was going to be 'no' by just looking at the rat's unchanging face, but she thought maybe she could convince him to change his mind.

Marcus picked up his upset daughter and held her tight. "Come on now. No tears." He whispered into her ear. "Let's not end such a nice visit with sadness." But Cherise couldn't stop herself from crying. This was going to be goodbye forever and it just hurt so much to say it.

Master Splinter got back up onto his feet and gave the young girl's hair a stroke. "I'm sorry it has to be this way."

"I know." Marcus said while handing the rat father a backpack that held the tapes Cherise gave the turtles. "She'll get over it." He walked the rat and turtles over to the balcony. "It was nice meeting you all."

"Same here." Master Splinter replied. "Come on now my sons." One by one the turtles jumped from balcony to balcony until they reached the drain pipe and slid down it to street level. Then they head out of the alley for theabandon building where the manhole back home was.

Splinter was the last to round the corner out of the alley. Before he did he took one last look back up at the balcony. He saw Marcus standing there watching them and holding his daughter while she kept her head buried in his shoulder. His sharp ears could hear her crying still and he knew that she didn't want to see them go. This sight made him feel guilty. Causing Cherise to cry was no way to repay what she and her father had done for his family.

Little did he know that years later he and the turtles would be able to return the kind deed.

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_A/N2: Welp, everyone forgave everyone else and all the turtles are going home (yay). But how will they be able to replay the father and his daughter? Guess you'll have to wait until the next chapter._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: I was really tempted to have this take place at the new lair, but I don't think both Casey and April have actually been there yet. So I'm going with the old lair for this story._**

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**Chapter Eight**

In six years memories can be difficult recall. Faces fade until they're nothing more than blurred images and names slip away to where the mind can't no longer grasp them. When so much happens over the years, it is not uncommon to think of a past kindness as ancient history. Losing a home only to find a better one. Learning of a great evil called the Shredder who must be defeated time and time again. Making new human friends who, after time, join the family. Being sent to another world, learning origins, and stopping a war that would take the city to shell in a hand basket.

The past year alone had made it hard to remember what it was like to have a peaceful life. So to keep from totally going insane from all the non-stop action, the turtle family (humans included) have learn to snatch up peaceful moments whenever they could. These moments were called 'Movie Nights' and in order for the night to be enjoyable, essentials had to be gotten. This time it was Leonardo and Michelangelo's turn to go out. Dressed in their usual human clothes, the two turtles went up top.

Now Leonardo wasn't too happy being stuck with his youngest brother. Since the season was winter it was natural that it would have snowed nonstop all day. Problem with snow and Michelangelo was that they went together quite well. Seeing all the icy white fluff put him in the mood to play, whereas Leonardo wanted to get their errands done so he could be back inside where it was warm.

Thus the trip went a little something like this. From home to the video store the orange clad turtle threw potshot of snow at his brother. The snowballs grew a bit in size as they went from the video store to the grocery store. Going from the grocery store to the park, where they would take a path home, Michelangelo became bold enough to shove a rather large handful of snow down his elder brother's back.

"That's it!" Leonardo bellowed as he threw downfour plastic bags of groceriesnear apark bench. "You make me carry all the bags and now you're shoving snow done my back?" He gathered up a large pile of snow into his hands. "Since you want a snowball fight so bad, I'll give you one!"

Michelangelo droppeda small little bag that contained the movie. "Uh-oh." He ran to take refuge behind a tree. "Come on Leo, I just wanted to have fun."

"You brought this on yourself Mikey." Leonardo snarled as he raised his pile of snow up, ready to throw it.

Michelangelo took out a nunchuk and hit the branches of the tree he was at. "Nah, ya brought it on yourself." He laughed as snow fell from the branches onto his elder brother, burying him.

Leonardo couldn't believe that he left himself so open. "Mikey…" He seethed whilethrashing his way out of the snow. "You are _so_ dead." Then blue clad turtle charged for his brother, who ran way laughing.

While the two turtles were having their squabble in the snow their grocery bags were left unattended. A crouched person hiding behind a bush peeredthrough it with cinnamon brown eyes, staring at those bags. Seeing them just sit there, abandoned, made the owner of those eyes venture out.

Carefully the person, wearing a threadbare cloak that was a foot longer than they were tall, emerged from the bushes. The form hovered over the bags like they were trying to decide which one to take. When the figure finally made a choice, slim arms came out from under the cloak to grasp the chosen bag. But when the form tried to lift it they found it too heavy. So with thin fingers the figure rummaged through the bag.

Meanwhile Leonardo had finally managed to shove his little brother's upper half into a large pile of snow. As he sat the lower half, waiting for the cry of defeat and the endless rambling of apologies, he spotted the figure trying to steal their movie night dinner and snackage. Forgetting about Michelangelo, the blue clad turtle jumped to his feet while scooping up a handful of snow. He packed the white flakes as tight as he could into a ball before lobbing it at the figure perched over the grocery bags.

"Get away from those!" Leonardo yelled while the snowball flew at the thief.

The packed snow hit the figure in the back of the head, causing the person to turn around. Seeing someone yelling at them made the form realized that the owner of the bags had caught them in the act. At first the thief was going to drop what they took and run away. But seeing as these two had so much food, more than they really needed, figured what hurt could it do to take what was already liberated.

The figure looked down at the ground, like it was ashamed for performing this act. "I know it's wrong." The thief whispered. It was so low that the turtle couldn't hear it, somaybe the person was saying to itself or to someone nobody could see. "Forgive me." Quickly the cloaked figure turned to run.

"The shell!" Leonardo cried. "Where do you think you're going with that?" He took up another snowball and launched at the fleeing figure, trying to get the form to drop what it stole.

The snowball hit the run away figure pretty hard in the leg, making them almost take a tumble. But though thief fell to one knee it held tight onto their bounty like it was some kind of precious treasure. For moment the form struggled to get back onto its feetso it couldcontinue to run again, but with a bit of a limp now.

Now that he wasn't being sat on, Michelangelo pulled his head free from snow bank that it was shoved into. "What's going on?" The orange clad turtle inquired. However he got no answer since his elder brother had gone running after some cloaked form.

As he went after the fleeing figure, Leonardo noticed that it wasn't going very fast. He could walk and still catch up with the thief. In fact, the figure didn't even really look like it was running.It looked like the thiefwas trying to keep from falling forwardas theydragging their feet in the snow; like the person was struggling to just move. With each step the figure forced itself to take larges puffs of steam came from its mouth. Then, when Leonardo caught up with the cloaked form,the figure just dropped face first into the snow and on top of what it was trying to steal.

"Hey…" The blue clad turtle quickly kneeled down next to the fallen figure. "Are you alright?" He rolled the person over and light from a street lamp shown onto her face. "The shell?" Her face looked familiar, or so he thought.

The girl looked pasted Leonardo, at the sky. It was like she couldn't even see him, yet she talked. "I'm…sorry."Shepanted. "But...I..." Before she could finish her sentence, the girlbecame unconscious.

"Geez Leo, what did you do to her?" Michelangelo questioned as he came up behind his elder brother.

"N…nothing." Leonardo stammered. "I was chasing her and she fell."

Michelangelo looked down at the girl in the snow. "Is she alright?" The young turtle kneeled down to check for a pulse and noticed the girl was wearing a fading green cloak. There was something about it that was so familiar, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. He grasped a hand full of fabric and rubbed it between is fingers. There were patches that felt like velvet while other parts felt like regular cloth, like the velvet part had worn off.

Leonardo noticed the concentrated look on his brother's face. "What is it?"

"I don't know." Michelangelo replied, still searching for something to recall. "Something about this cloak she wears. I remember seeing it somewhere before, feeling it before." He looked at the girl. "And there is something familiar about her too."

"I waswondering if was just me who thoughtshe looked like someone we knew." Leonardo said while looked back down at the girl, searching his mind for who she could be to them. "Say…this couldn't be…" Somehow he knew who she was and it was just on the tip of his brain, on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't seem to get it out. "I think her name started with a K…or was it a C?"

"Who are you trying to think of?" Michelangelo inquired.

"You know, that girl." Leonardo answered. "That girl…girl…. Gads I can see her,but I can't seem to recall her name."

"Maybe Donnie or Master Splinter can place her." Michelangelo suggested. "They never forget a face."

Leonardo nodded. "Alright." He dug his arms underneaththe girl'sbody and lifted her off the ground. To his surprise she was lighter than he expected someone her sizeshould be. "You gather the stuff she stole and go get the bags."

"Me?" Michelangelo asked in shock. "You can't expect me to carry all that."

"You're not that weak." Leonardo replied.

"Tell you what, I'll carry her and you can carry the bags." Michelangelo held his arms out, expecting is brother to just give in and hand the girl over to him.

"Forget it Mikey." Leonardo replied. "Look, I'll take two bags and the girl. You take the other two and the movie."

"Alright." Michelangelo frumped.

**At the lair…**

Donatello and Splinter were in the kitchen, setting up things needed for the food that they were waiting for. April was over at tech-turtle's computer, surfing the 'for sale' ads for antiques she could put up in her new store. Casey and Raphael were trying to see who could bench press the most weight.

After awhile Donatello came out of the kitchen to see if the brothers had come back with the groceries. "They're not back yet?"

"Does it look like it?" Raphael snapped.

"What's your problem?" Donatello inquired. "Lose to Casey?"

"Yes." The vigilant answered.

"Did not." Raphael retorted. "Ya cheated by addin' more weights before I was ready."

"The point was ta see who could lift da most." Casey reminded. "Not my fault yer so weak."

"Lets we see how weak I am when I'm pinnin' ya ta da ground." Raphael jumped the dark haired man and they rolled around on the ground.

Donatello rolled his eyes at the two of them wrestling. "Enjoy pummeling yourself." He said as he went back into the kitchen.

Not too long after Leonardo and Michelangelo enter the lair. Raphael was the first to see them. "Took ya guys long enough." The red clad turtle complained. "We're starvin'."

"Nice to see you too." Leonardo replied coolly. "We're fine, nothing happening. Thanks for asking."

"Whatever." Raphael spat. "What _were_ ya doin' all dis time?" He didn't seem to take much notice of what was in his elder brother's arms.

"Leo shoved my head into a snow bank and then sat on me." Michelangelo tattled.

"That's because you wanted a snowball fight and I didn't." Leonardo said as he shot a glare at his youngest brother. "Then you go shoving snow down my back side and burying me in the stuff. So of course I was going to retaliate."

"I think I hear Sensei calling me." Quickly Michelangelo went into the kitchen with the bags he carried.

Leonardo gave his head a shake. "Yeah, whatever." He then turned towards Casey and Raphael. "Either one of you think you could give me a hand here?"

As Casey took the bags he noticed what else the blue clad turtle was carrying. "Hey Leo, what's with da girl?" The young man passed them onto Michelangelo when he came out of the kitchen and the young turtle went back in with them.

"Someone we know." Leonardo answered while laying the girl on the couch. "Someone grab some blankets, she's ice cold."

"Geez, would ya just look at her?" Raphael commented as he looked at her from the back of the couch. "She looks awful."

The girl's cheeks looked caved and eyes a little sunken in, it were though she was malnourished. Her long hair that could go down to her rear was dirty enough to make it black and it was thin like thread. The girl's clothes were as worn as the cloak. It looked like she used to be wearing a gray long sleeve shirt, but the lower part of the sleeves were torn off near the elbows. The legs of blue pants were ripped around the calves so bad that only a couple pieces of thread held it together behind the knees. And the shoes…there were no shoes. What were on the girl's feet were a couple pairs of sweat socks soaked from the snow. Most of her skin was covered with splotches of dirt and mud. However the parts that weren't dirty were white, almost blue, due to the cold outside. But now that she was inside, where it was warm, her skin started to turn red as it warmed back up.

While blankets were being place on her, the girl began to breathe heavily and sweat was starting to coming from her brow. April put a hand on the girl's forehead. "She's running a fever." She said anxiously. "How long has she been out in the snow?"

"Don't know." Leonardo answered. "We found her trying to steal some groceries, but collapsed when she was making her get away." He looked over at his brother wearing red. "Can you remember who she is?" Raphael shook her head.

"The food can wait to be put away later." Michelangelo said from inside the kitchen. "You guys have to come out here and identify this girl." He came out pulling Donatello and Master Splinter with him.

They all went over to the couch to look at the girl. Donatello rubbed his chin as he looked and Master Splinter gave her a sniff over. But they had the same problem as the others in trying to place the girl. They knew she did something important for them, something very important.

While studding the girl, Master Splinter did realize how sick she was. "Leonardo, I want you to put on a pot of hot water." He ordered. "When it's done, bring it and a small bowl out here."

"Yes Sensei." Leonardo replied as he bowed.

Master Splinter turned to Michelangelo. "Go into my room and get my box of herbal medicine."

When the orange clad turtle went off to do as he was told, Donatello snapped his fingers and ran over to their entertainment system. He dug through an old box containing videotapes.

"What are ya looking fer branic?" Raphael questioned.

"I'll let you know when I find it." Donatello answered. "Ah, here we go." The purple clad turtle came back to the couch holding a tape in his hands just as Michelangelo was returning with the box of herbs. "Have a look." He held it out for all to see.

The cover that sheathed the tape was tattered as well as torn from being kicked around and being used so many times. Just below the title of the video was yellowish masking tape with faded black writing on it, 'Property of Marcus and Cherise'.

"Dat's Cherise?" Raphael questioned. "Da years have really done sumpthin' ta her."

"Do you really think it her?" Leonardo questioned while coming out with a teapot of hot water and bowl. "Last time we saw her, she looked so…healthy."

"It has to be." Donatello replied. "Looks at what's around her neck." He pointed to a necklace. It was dark brown leather lace and a large light blue marble was attached to it with wire from paperclips.

"Is that not the charm you made for her?" Master Splinter inquired. "One to repay for what was done?"

"Oh yeah, I remember now." Raphael answered. "Dat was my favorite marble. Wasn't it called a 'Blue Angel'?" He gave a small snort. "Ya made me give it up cause you thought it would be perfect gift for her."

"And Donnie wrapped the wire around it to make it stay on the lace." Michelangelo piped.

"Yeah, a lace that was stole from my leather pouch." Leonardo grumbled. "The one I used to hold things those rocks I'd find with Master Splinter."

"Come on, it was the least we could have done at the time." Donatello chided. "Man, it's been so many years." He sighed.

"What did she do?" April asked.

"Actually it was both she and her father." Donatello answered. "See, there was this one time Mikey and I kind of ran away from home when we were little. Only we didn't mean to actually run away. We had just gotten into a fight with Leo and Raph, saying some pretty mean things. The result of the fight was Leo and Raph going their way while Mikey and I went out."

"But then we bumped into this human who was a real bully and he took us to his hideout as pets." Michelangelo jumped in. "They threw paint balloons at us, but Cherise got him to stop and she set her father to come get us out."

"He couldn't take us back home, because he didn't know where it was and also it was going to storm pretty bad that night." Donatello went on. "So he took us to his home where we spent the night."

"Master Splinter had ta go out lookin' for 'em." Raphael cut in. "When he found 'em dey were sleepin' with da guy and his daughter, cause dey were scared of da storm."

"If I recall, so were you and Leonardo." Master Splinter interjected. "And if I also remember, I told you two to stay at home while I went to find your brothers."

"We stayed at their place for another day, til the weather was fit enough for us to go back home." Leonardo continued.

"He and Raphie thought that Donnie and I weren't going to come home with them." Michelangelo piped. "Thought we were going to stay with the girl and her father cause they had all kinds of stuff."

Raphael gave the orange clad a smack upside the head. "Sometimes I wished ya did." Then he wrapped his arm around the turtle's neck to give him a nuggie. "Just kiddin'."

"I wonder what happen to her." Donatello pondered. "How did she end up like this? There's no way her father could have let her end up like this, so what happen to him?"

"The only way we can get answers is if we make her well first." Master Splinter stated as he mixed herbs with the hot water in the small bowl. "So let us start there."

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_A/N2: Made Cherise out pretty bad, didn't I? Guess we'll have to wait until next chapter to find out what happen to daddy dearest and his little girl._


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Not to give anything away, but I think someone's guess came pretty close as to what happen to Marcus. _;p**

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**Chapter Nine**

For obvious reasons Cherise couldn't be changed out of her ratty clothes. However her arms, face, and legs were cleaned to prevent further illnesses. The young girl's soaked socks were replaced with dry ones to not only keep her feet warm, but to shave off any chances of frostbite as well. The couch was unfolded into a bed and a few blankets were placed on Cherise to keep the cold off. Yet the young girl was still with a very high fever, so cold compresses were put upon her head and bitter herbal medicine was poured into her.

Nights were the worse for the poor young girl, because her feverish dreams would make her cry and moan for her father. "Daddy…" Cherise would cough, her voice barely heard above a whisper. "Daddy…" And she would grabbed hold of anyone who was within her reach, refusing to let go until she well comforted. "…I don't feel good."

Everything was tried to calm the young girl down during these intense nightmares she suffered. She desperately needed to save her strength and voice if she was ever to get well again. However nothing short of coddling worked. So that's what Splinter and the turtles did when it was their turn to watch Cherise. When she started to make a fuss they would take the young girl up into their arms and rock her gently. Sometimes they had to pretend to be her father, talking to her soothingly and stroke her hair gently. Then when she was calm again they would lay her back down until the next time she would weep uncontrollably.

Even Casey and April, who did not know Cherise, felt moved enough to help in this kind of way. Of course the most unusual person to perform such a thingwas Raphael. At first he tried to resist doing such an 'embarrassing act', however the young girl's sobbing would cause him give in the end. But interesting enough was Leonardo showing so much compassion towards Cherise. Considering that he had resented the fact that she tried to become a sister to Donatello and Michelangelo in the past, the blue clad turtle couldn't help playing 'big brother' to the young girl.

After three days and three nights Cherise's fever finally broke. Finally being of sound mind the young girl looked around to see a large humanoid turtle sitting on the armrest of the couch with a book in his hands. He rubbed one of his tired eyes as he read. "Can it be?" The young girl whispered, her throat was still sore from her being sick. "I thought it was a delirious dream." Tears came from the corners of her eyes as she began to weep.

Hearing the young girl sniffling and thinking that she was having another one of her bad dreams Leonardo got up off the armrest. He placed his open book down where he once sat and came over Cherise. "Shh…" The blue clad turtle said calmly while brushing some hair from her forehead. "You need to conserve your strength if you ever want to get better." Though he knew that his comforts would fall onto non-understanding ears, the young turtle still talked to her as if she would.

Cherise weakly smiled at him. "How long?"

"Eh?" Surprised that the young girl was coherent, Leonardo felt her forehead with the back of his hand. "Fever is gone. How do you feel?"

"…Hungry." Cherise replied meekly.

"Ok." Leonardo said with a nod. "Well let's just get you something to eat." He got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen.

Michelangelo was sitting on a counter, flipping through a cookbook. "Hey Leo." The young turtle greeted. "I was thinking of trying something new for dinner tonight."

"Later for that." Leonardo responded. "Cherise is hungry."

"She is?" Michelangelo exclaimed. "You mean she's better?"

"She still might be a little sick, but at least her fever has broken." Leonardo answered. "How whipping up some soup for her."

Michelangelo jumped off the counter and gave a salute. "I'm on it."

Leonardo couldn't help shaking his head while going back out into the living room to see Cherise struggling to sit up. Quickly the young turtle went over to her so that he could help her. "Something will be brought out to you in a moment." He told her while making sure the young girl stayed wrapped up in a blanket so that she'd keep warm.

Cherise gave a slight nod, as if to say thanks, but she avoided making eye contact with the young turtle. "Um…I'm really sorry that I tried to…um…steal from you guys the other night." She felt ashamed for her previous action. "I…I know it was wrong. But I so hungry and…and I just couldn't think straight."

"You were sick." Leonardo sat down on the couch bed next to her and looked her in the eye. "How long has it been since you've eaten?"

"I don't know." Cherise shrugged. "At least weeks."

"Well then I guess this will just be an appetizer for ya." Michelangelo chuckled as he came out with a tray table loaded down with food.

"Mikey, I thought I told you to make soup." Leonardo scolded. "She might not be able to stomach anything else."

"Nonsense." Michelangelo scoffed as he placed the tray down in front of the young girl. "She practically skin and bones. If she doesn't eat enough she can't get her strength back and that wouldn't make her well again."

Cherise stared at the food that was in front of her with wide eyes. For at least a minute she was afraid to blink, just in case it would all vanish if she did. With shaky hands she took up a bowl of soup and brought itto her nose. Such a delightful smell came from the dish that it made the young girl's lips tremble with anticipation. Slowly she brought the bowl to her mouth and quietly slipped the soup. When she was done Cherise placed the bowl back down on the tray so that she may pick up something else to eat.

What surprised the two turtles were that the girl's eating habits. A starving person who was given a bounty of food would have tried to stuff a much as they could into their mouth, but not Cherise. She made sure that her eating etiquettes were kept neat and she refused any more food when she was done with what was on the tray table. But Michelangelo tried to persuade the girl to at least have seconds. "Are you sure you don't more?" Cherise shook her head. "How about some dessert then? Nobody can say no to sweets." The girl took a second to think before shaking her head slowly. "Not even cookies?" Michelangelo question temptingly as he watched to see if he could wear her down. "I have a batch of peanut butter cookies with big chocolate chucks and I know you like them."

"Mrs. Mason use to bake those." Cherise whispered. "Any time she had a batch done she would make daddy bring some home for me." She started rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "…daddy."

"Good one Mikey." Leonardo commented.

"What?" Michelangelo exclaimed. "How was I supposed to know that mentioning cookies would upset her?"

"Hey, she's up." Raphael bellowed from the second level. "Yo Donnie, da girl is up." The red clad turtle jumped down and ran over to the couch with his brother following. "It's about time." He hopped up onto the back of the couch, near the girl and behind his 'elder' brother. "So what happened ta ya? How did ya end up like dis? Where's yer father?"

Cherise brought her knees up to her chest, hugging them. "…daddy." The blanket fell off her shoulders in the process and shefound that she wasn't wearing something. "Where is it?" The young girl said in a panicked tone. "Where is the cloak?"

"We had to take if off so you could sleep comfortably." Donatello told her.

"You didn't throw it away did you?" Cherise asked anxiously. "Please tell me you didn't throw it away."

Master Splinter had heard the young girl's frantic cries and came from his room. "Do not worry young one." He held out the well-worn faded green cloak. "We had made sure that it was put in a safe place for you."

Cherise snatched the cloak from the elder rat, clutching it close to her body. With eyes closed she pressed the worn fabric to the lower half of her face and inhaled deeply. Afterwards she let out a satisfied sigh while rubbing the most velvet part of the cloak across her cheeks.

"It's just a cloak." Raphael stated sternly. "Why make such a big fuss about it?"

Cherise plopped the cloak down into her lap and glared at the red clad turtle. "This is daddy's favorite cloak." She informedsternly. "He wore for Halloween and to Renaissance fairs." The young girl pointed towards Donatello andMichelangelo. "This was the cloak he used to conceal guys from people so he could takethem from Darren's hideout to our home." Cherise brought the cloak back up to one of her cheeks. "And it's all I have left of him." She sobbed.

Leonardo took the distress young girl into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder. "There, there.Big brother Leowon't let mean ol' Raph upset you anymore." He said half comforting and half teasingly while giving her head a pat. His red bandanna-wearing brother stuck out his tongue out in response.

Master Splinter took a seat in his usual armchair that was place across from the couch. He gave the girl a moment to cry a bit before asking the obvious question that was on everyone's mind. "What happen?"

Cherise dabbed her eyes with the cloak as she straightened up into a proper sitting position. "Um…" Her lip still trembled a bit. "I…(sniff)…don't know. See…uh…one day, about a year ago, daddy…um…didn't come home from work." She cleared her throat a bit so it wouldn't sound rasped. "At first I thought he couldn't cause there was supposed to be some kind of strike with the subway people. But…if he couldn't take the subway I knew he would take a cab. So then I called his job place…and Belinda, the receptionist, said he left for the subway like he always does. So then I called the police and they said to wait one more day before reporting him as missing. So I figure that I'd wait two more days for daddy to come home and he didn't."

"So your dad just up and disappeared?" Michelangelo questioned.

"I…guess, I don't know." Cherise sniffled. "When I called the police again and told them that daddy still hadn't come home they sent some cop out over to asked me a bunch question. Then they took a recent picture of daddy and told me that they would retrace his steps to see if anyone knew what happened to him. But some kind of really big crime happened, like a robbery or murder, and it that took up so much of their time that they didn't have a chance to do it."

"So how did ya end up on da street?" Raphael asked.

"With daddy gone I was going to have foster care called on me, because I was so underage that I couldn't beallowed to take care of myself." Cherise answered. "But I was afraid to go. So I told the police that my daddy and I lived with his parents. I told them that my grandparents would be back from their vacation in a couple of days and that Mrs. Sway from next door watches me when nobody his home."

"You should have not lied to the police." Master Splinter scolded.

"You don't know what happens to children who are put into foster care." Cherise snapped. "I've had many friends who got forgotten 'in the system'. Kids get lost in the system so bad that parents, really good parents, can't get them back. And if you arelike over the age of five, ten at the latest, nobody wants you." Realizing that she was getting too excite, the young girl calmed herself. "I didn't want to go through that. I wanted to stay home where daddy could find me once he was located. I figured that word on him would come up in a couple of days. However weeks went by withno clues as to where he might be and I was starting to run out ofstuff to eat. So I took things into my own hands and made posters with his picture to hang up all over the place. Then I travel the routes he would havetaken to come home and asked anyone if they had seen him. But still no information came to me about daddy.

One day Mrs. Sway, my landlord as well as my babysitter, came over to the apartment asking for the rent. I was going to tell her the situation, but if I told her that I was by myself I knew she'd feel obligated to call the police on me and they would call foster care. So I told her that she'd have the rent soon."

"How did you get the money?" Michelangelo asked.

"I sold everything we owned except for the clothes on my back and daddy's cloak. I figure that when he came back we could just everything back." Cherise answered. "Selling everything we had gave me enough money to pay off two months' rent and enough food to last about that long." The young girl looked down at the cloak in her lap. "I assumed that the added time would have been more than enough to find daddy…. But it wasn't."

"Don't tell me that Mrs. Sway threw you out when the rent was up." Donatello stated with some shock.

Cherise shook her head. "I had always been careful to make sure that she didn't know daddy was missing while I looked for him. But about a week before rent was due again she did find outand called the police. She must have told them that I had been living alone for over three months in a near empty apartment, because there was this woman from social services outside my door waiting for me. When I saw her and realized that my cover was blown I ran away."

"Where did you go?" Michelangelo questioned. "Mrs. Mason?"

"No, she was gone by the time daddy went missing." Cherise replied. "I just roamed the streets like some kind of street urchin. I'd find shelter where I could and stole what food I need to keep me going." At this point the young girl was too ashamed to pick her head up and look at anyone. "I know it was wrong, that daddy taught me better, but I didn't want to starve. I even tried to keep a tab of what I took and from where, so that I could pay them back when I found daddy. But after doing it so long I lost count of how much I owed and from where I've had stole things from.

At one point I was almost caught by a shopkeeper. He got suspicious of me when he saw how shabby my clothes looked. Him chasing me way made me realized that I couldn't steal from stores anymore. So then I restored to either pick pocketing people or lifting their groceries when they weren't looking. But I wouldn't do it too often, because I wasn't that good at it and would almost get caught."

"Which you eventually did." Michelangelo pointed out.

"Luckily it was by us and not someone who would turn you over to the police." Leonardo added.

"And now here yer are." Raphael stated.

"…yep." Cherise gave a miserable nod. "And I don't know where to go from there."

"Well you can stay here with us until we find your father." Michelangelo declared. "Right Sensei?"

Master Splinter was a little caught off guard by this sudden announcement. He would have preferred they had a discussion before making any plans. But then Splinter thought that there shouldn't have to any debate. He and the turtles should take young Cherise in without question, because it was their turn to repay a kindness with a kindness. "Yes, of course she may stay. And we'll do everything we can to findher father."

Cherise was so happy that she jumped off the couch and hugged the elder rat tightly. "Thank you so much." The young girl softly wept. "Thank you."

The turtles were as shock as Master Splinter by the young girl's sudden action. However the elder rat returned the hug and patted the back of her head. "You are quite welcome."

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_A/N2: You know what? I think I'm taking a lesson from the story writers that do the cartoon by leaving you with a continous cliffhanger. (Heh)_ :p 


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

It was thanks to April that Cherise had a new set of clothing, which she was ecstatic about. It had been a while since the young girl had a decent set of clothes and she showed it while putting them on. Once the white turtleneck over her head, Cherise left the collar over her nose for a bit so that she smelled its newness. After putting on the gray t-shirt the young girl lightly stroke its sleeves across her cheeks so that she could feel the softness of the fabric. When she put on the dark blue sweatpants, Cherise glided her hands over them so that they could feel how smooth they were. And she admired the black sneakers that she gleefully put on her feet.

When Cherise was finished dressing she was practically pulled in four different directions by the turtles. It seemed that her presences there sparked some kind of competition for attention and sisterly approval. They all wanted to show the young girl how much they've changed, how much they've improved, since they were last together.

Michelangelo was the first to actually get a hold of Cherise's arm and he started to lead her towards his room so that he could show her his collection of toys. But he couldn't really go anywhere with Donatello holding onto the girl's other arm. He wanted to show the young girl all the stuff that he invented.

From there it was a bit of a tug-o-war with Cherise over who was going to show her what. "I have actual toys to show, where as you have things you call toys." Michelangelo said while pulling the young girl towards him.

"Oh please, she's fifteen years old. That means she's not a child anymore." Donatello snorted as he pushed Michelangelo off Cherise. "So she's not going to be interested in childish things." The purple clad turtle moved the young girl out of his brother's reach so he couldn't grab hold of her again.

"Hey I'm fifteen years old too." Michelangelo countered as he made a snatch for Cherise.

Donatello put the young girl behind him. "You really don't want me to reply to that." He warned. "My point is that she's old enough to appreciate some of the things I built."

"Aw you'll just put her to sleep with all your techno babble." Michelangelo tried to get around his brother.

Cherise was about to voice her opinion when she was seized by Leonardo. "Why don't you leave the 'children' to argue among themselves shall we?" He suggested while semi carrying the young girl towards the dojo area of the lair.

"Hey, I had her first." Donatello and Michelangelo said in unison. Then the two glared each other. "No, I had her first."

Leonardo continued with carry Cherise off with him. "Anyway, you can come see something even better than a bunch of 'toys'."

"Yeah, me show ya my muscular strengths." Raphael stated while taking the young girl from his blue clad brother. "Did ya know dat I could bench press…Hey!" Leonardo snatched Cherise back, but Raphael wouldn't let go of her.

Cherise was now suspend in the air between the two squabbling brothers. "Um…" She tried to say something to get their attention. "Guys…look I'd…" But they to busy arguing with each other to hear her.

"Anyone can lift a bunch of weights. What I'm talking about showing her takes skills and practice to learn." Leonardo retorted while pulling the young girl out of his brother's hand. "I'm talking about showing Cherise ninjitsu." The young turtle pulled so hard that he ended up stumbling backwards with the girl.

Luckily Michelangelo happened to appear behind the blue clad turtle and was ready to pluck Cherise out of his brother's hands as he fell. "Ninjitsu." The orange clad turtle razzed. "Don't tell me you want to bore her too Leo." He was about to walk towards his room with Cherise when she was taken from his hands.

"Why thank you Mikey." Donatello said with a satisfied grin on his face.

"And thank you." Raphael stated while taking Cherise from his purple clad brother.

At this point Cherise was getting tired of being passed around like some kind of object. "Put me down!" She ordered and all the turtles looked at her with surprise. "Now!"

"Uh…here you go." Raphael said as he set the girl gently down on the ground.

"Look, I know we've hadn't see each other in over six years and I would _love_ to see what you guys have become." Cherise said sternly. "And I'm impressed with how you guys live. I mean I've never seen sewers look so nice. But I really want to find my dad or what happened to him." She started to wave an index finger at them. "Now you all said that you'd help, so please help me."

All four turtles felt a little ashamed for briefly ignoring Cherise's present problem. "I guess I'm speaking for everyone when I say, 'sorry'." Leonardo told the girl. "We'll start helping you out right now."

Cherise's stern expression relaxed into a happy one. "Thank you."

"But where do we start?" Michelangelo questioned. "What can we do that the police and Cherise haven't do yet?"

"Have you checked any of the local hospitals?" Donatello questioned. "Have the police dug up any accident reports or anything?"

Cherise shyly rubbed the back of her head. "I didn't think to check the hospitals." The young girl answered timidly. "I didn't think anything bad had happen to him." She also gave a shrug of her shoulders. "And the police made no mention of pulling up any accident reports."

"Then that's where we'll start." Donatello announced as he headed for his computer.

"Police put their accident reports up online?" Cherise asked with surprise. "I didn't know they did that."

"They don't." Michelangelo replied. "Donnie's going to hack into their files."

Cherise's eyes grew wide. "You can't do that." She practically exclaimed. "You'll get in really big trouble and get yourself arrested."

"Please." Donatello razzed. "I'm so good that they wouldn't even know I was there." He sat down in front of his computer and started typing away. "Now let's see how many accidents we've had in the past year here…."

An extra long list flooded the computer. "Wow, dat's a lot of accidents." Raphael commented.

"You and Casey have been busy." Donatello replied with a bit of a smirk. "About good half of these guys are Purple Dragons."

"Just keepin' da streets clean." Raphael answered.

Donatello rolled his eyes. "Ok now I need to minimize the search." He said as he continued to type. "We're looking for a man, somewhere between thirties and forties, fair skinned, and is not a Purple Dragon." A good chunk of the accident reports went away. "Now to do a search for a guy name Marcus…um…" Donatello turned to look at the girl. "What is your last name?"

"Bard." Cherise answered.

Donatello typed the name in and scrolled down the reports that were left. "Let's see…Marcus Bard…Marcus Bard…nope, nothing."

"How about looking up just Marcus?" Leonardo suggested. "Sure it'll give us a lot of men, but it could also give us a better start than what we have now."

"…or not." Donatello said with nothing came up on the screen.

"You'd think a least one person would be named Marcus in that whole list." Michelangelo commented.

"Not with the specifics we gave." Donatello replied. "Hmmm…Let's go with John Doe."

"How is lookin' up John Doe gonna find Cherise's father?" Raphael questioned.

"John Doe is what the police name men who are found, but have not proof of identity." Donatello answered. "Ok, now we're getting somewhere." The purple clad turtle stated when a list of people came up. "There's a bit, but I think I can shrink it down a little more."

"How?" Cherise asked.

"By putting in the address your father's work place is at and all the possible streets he might have taken to get home." Donatello told her. "It wouldn't help to go check on someone if they had an accident in another city, would it?"

"I suppose not." Cherise replied.

After the girl gave him the address of the building her father worked at Donatello typed in all the possible routes Marcus might have gone to get home. "Alright, we got a bunch of people at different hospitals, but it's at least a manageable size."

"Well let's get April and Casey on the cell." Leonardo ordered. "They can take Cherise around."

**A handful of hospitals later….**

"Do you know how many people we have going through here in year?" The ER receptionist asked irritability.

"Do ya know how many times we've been asked dat?" Casey countered just as heatedly.

"Look, you're asking if I remember seeing some guy being brought in here over a year ago." The receptionist snapped. "Now I don't how to tell you this in a way that you'd understand, but I don't know how to help you."

April pushed her way between Casey and the receptionist. "I know how busy you can get." She said calmly. "But were talking about this young girl's father who's missing."

"We're an ER. Thousands of people are rushed through here." The receptionist nearly got into the red-haired woman's face. "You're asking me to identify a man who could have been nothing more than a blur."

"Please." Cherise said politely while holding out a picture of her father. "Just a look…a glimpse. Maybe…maybe it might make you think up of a patient that had come through here."

The receptionist went to turn her glare at the young girl, but it softens when she saw the plea in Cherise's eyes. With a deep sigh the woman takes the picture and looks at it. "No…wait…yes. I think I remember this John Doe." The receptionist pointed to something Marcus was wearing in the picture. "I was just thinking about how ridiculous that tie was and that he had guts to wear it outside the house."

Cherise blushed with embarrassment while smiling brightly at the same time. "So…do you know what happen to him?" She asked eagerly.

"I'll pull up his record." The receptionist replied. "Ok, he came in about a year ago…no proof of identity…and…um…" The woman looked at up tensely. "Are all of you family?" She asked April and Casey.

The two adults looked at each other nervously, but Cherise answered. "Yes. They are my aunt and uncle." She pointed to Casey. "He's my daddy's little brother."

"Ok, well Miss, why don't you take your niece for a drink or something while I take to her uncle." The receptionist suggested to April.

"Why do you need to talk to Uncle Casey?" Cherise questioned. "I should be allowed to know what's wrong with my daddy."

The receptionist looked at Casey pleadingly. "Um…sweetheart, why don't ya take Chrissie for candy or something ta eat?" The young man pulled a couple bucks out of his pocket.

April raised a slight eyebrow at Casey. "Sweetheart?" The dark haired motioned his head for them to go. "Well if Uncle Casey is buying, let's go get something." April took the money and started to usher the girl along.

Cherise crossed her arms. "I don't like being called Chrissie and I don't like being treated like a child." The young girl frumped while going with the red haired woman.

"Alright, da kid's gone." Casey stated. "What is it ya wanna talk about?"

"It's about your brother sir." The receptionist answered. "He was a victim of a vicious hit and run. The police assumed that he was targeted, but they have yet to know who did it or why. Anyway we have him in our permanent care unit."

Casey was already shocked when he heard 'vicious hit and run', but he put a hand to his forehead when he heard 'permanent care'. "Ya mean he's…"

"He's been in a comma all this time." The receptionist answered. "I only have what is on the computer, so if you want to know more you're going to have to talk to the current doctor in charge."

"Alright." Casey said with a nod. "Let's talk with him."

The receptionist called someone to take Casey to Marcus's doctor's office. "I can tell you this much, you brother's body is fine. He won't be paralyzed or anything." The doctor told Casey. "But as for his brain…it's been undetermined if he's weaving between being in a permanent vegetative state or not. I can't even tell you when he's going to walk up or if he'll able to."

"Aw geez." Casey bowed his head and rubbed it vigorously with both hands. "I don't know which is worse fer Cherise, not know where her dad was or finding him like dis."

"Maybe this is a good thing Mr. Jones." The doctor replied. "There have be evidence showing that comma patient can hear their loved ones talking to them. Sometime it's their voice that brings them around."

Casey looked up at the doctor. "I suppose." He sighed. "But all depends on how she's going to handle dis."

"Well I can take you, your wife, and your niece to seem him if you'd like." The doctor offered.

"Wait, I want to see my…uh…brother before letting my…um…niece does." Casey replied.

The doctor nodded. "Alright, if that's the way you want it." He led the dark haired man from the office to the room that Marcus was in. "Here you go. I have to make my rounds, so if you need anything I'm sure a nurse can help." The doctor was about to leave, but stopped. "Since he's got a name, I'd like to know what it is for the record."

"Marcus Bard." Casey answered while stand at the door.

"Bard?" The doctor questioned. "His last name is Bard…Mr. Jones?"

Casey continued to stare through the door, he didn't seem to want to enter the room. "Uh...yeah. He changed his last name he got married."

"I see." The doctor replied, somewhat skeptically. "Well I guess I'll be seeing you later."

"…yeah." Casey took a deep breath before entering the room and a second later he came back out looking pale. "Der's no way I'm lettin' her see dat." He went back down to the waiting room ER to find Cherise and April.

"So what's wrong with my father?" Cherise questioned.

"Let's get outta here." Casey answered.

"I want to know what happen to daddy." Cherise said with persistence in her voice.

"I'll tell ya when we get back ta da guys." Casey replied while pushing the young girl out the door.

"Why can't you tell me now?" Cherise demanded. "Why can't I see him?"

"Because ya just can't." Casey retort. "I…I just can't let ya see him like dat."

Outside the hospital Cherise used her heels to stop from being pushed. She turned around to face Casey and bounced an index finger off of his chest. "And just _who_ do you think you are to tell me what to do? He is my father and I have a right to see him no matter what."

April put a hand on Casey's shoulder and turned him towards her a little. "Why can't she see her father? It's been a year."

"Trust me, I'm doin' dis fer her own good." Casey told April before turning to Cherise. "Ya don't want to see him in da condition he's in." In reply Cherise turned her back to the dark haired man and refused to move another step. "Well if dat's da way ya gonna be…" Casey picked the young girl up over his shoulder.

"Put me down!" Cherise ordered while beating on his back. "You can't do this to me!"

"I can and I will." Casey said as he carried her to the car they drove in. "We're goin' back ta da guys and dat's final."

Realizing that she wasn't going to win this fight, Cherise stop hitting Casey's back and crossed her arms. "You jerk." She grumbled under her breath.

**Back at the lair…**

Everyone was doing their own thing when they heard the elevator called up to the garage. Michelangelo was sorting is comic book collection, Donatello was working in his lab, Raphael was lifting weight, Leonardo was practicing his katas, and Master Splinter was watching television. They didn't exactly stop where they were doing, but they did keep an eye on the elevator. When the double doors on the alien lift opened Cherise came storming out. "Get me away from him!"

Michelangelo put down the comic he had and walks over to the angry young girl. "What happen?"

"That…that…" Cherise was so mad, she was having a hard time trying to talk. "We found my dad, but that…creep over there won't let me see him. He won't even tell me what's wrong."

Leonardo watched as April and Casey came out of the elevator before going over to them. "What is she talking about Casey?"

"Her dad was a targeted hit and run victim." Casey told everyone. "And now he's in a comma."

"Why couldn't you have told me that back at the hospital?" Cherise exclaimed. "And why couldn't you have let me see my dad?"

"Because no child should have ta see their parent like dat." Casey retorted. "I oughta know, because I had to see my dad like that after the Purple Dragons were done with him. It was freaky seein' him all banged up and tubes come from everywhere on his body." He let out a frustrated sigh. "My dad looked so different after a time bein' like dat. He looked so…"

Cherise's cheeks suddenly felt hot with embarrassment. "I…I didn't know." The young girl said timidly. "I'm sorry about your dad." Casey gave a grunt in reply. "But…" She wanted to say something else. "…nevermind."

Michelangelo tried to point out the silver lining. "Well at least you know where he is and how he's doing for now."

"I suppose…"Cherise gave right arm a scratch with her left hand. "But if he's in a comma, there's no way of telling when he'll wake up." She moved her left hand to the back of her head. "That means you're going to be stuck with me for who knows how long."

"Don't say that." Michelangelo countered. "We're not stuck with you, we're happy to have around. If it makes you feel better, think of yourself as the sister we never had. " He put an arm around the young girl's shoulders. "Now that you need to get your mind off your current trouble and since I have your attention…how about I show you my comic book collection? I have a good feeling that you've never seen anything like it."

"Here we go again." Cherise muttered with a small smile when she saw the other turtles come around to 'help cheer her up'.

* * *

_A/N: Hokay, well now we know what happen to Marcus. Next is when or if he'll wake up. I have feel you'll all know which way I'm leaning. _;D

_Edit: I realize that I somehow have this facination with putting people in the hosptial...can't figure out why though._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Being that it was pretty late, Casey and April decided to take their leave. But before leaving Casey wanted to make sure that Cherise wouldn't try to sneak up top to see her father. "I want yer word dat ya'll stay down here."

"…." Cherise didn't know what to say.

"Look, I promise dat I'll make visits everyday and tell ya what his condition is." Casey swore. "So der's no reason why ya would have ta go see 'em."

Cherise avoided making eye contact with the dark haired manas shetwitched her mouth back and forth. "…ok." She finally answered.

"Yeah mean it?" Casey questioned.

Cherise grunted a sigh. "Yes." With hands on her hips, the young girl crossed one foot in front of the other and bent forward a little. "I can do as I'm told. I'm not a child." Casey looked at her skeptically, but believed that she would mind him. However the minute his back was turned to leave, the young girl sported a sly smile. '_I can do as I'm told, doesn't really mean that I will._'

Leonardo was the only one to notice the smile on Cherise's face, since his brothers and master were escorting the two human out. "I know that look." He whispered.

"What look?" Cherise tried to look innocent as she walked over to the television area.

Leonardo went after her. "That 'up to something' look." He answered. "I know it well, because Mikey gets the same look when he's planning a prank."

"Really? I thought it was gas." Cherise joshed while plopping down onto the couch.

Leonardo forced a chuckle. "Funny." Then he put ona serious look. "You're not going to do as Casey says, are you?"

"Would you?" Cherise asked angrily. "Would you be ok with some guy makingsnap decision like that if itwere your father up there, probably dying?"

"He's just looking out for you." Leonardo defended. "You can't fault him for that."

"But it's my choice." Cherise stated firmly. "He had no right to rob me of that."

"Well you can't go up there." Leonardo said sternly.

"And why not?" Cherise questioned.

"Because you promised not to." Leonardo answered. "What would your father say if you broke it?"

"Did I say I promise? Did you hear me say 'I promise'?"

"Well…no."

"Right, I simply said that I can do as I'm told. However I reserve the right not to."

Leonardo put his hands on his hips and gave the young girl his authoritative 'elder brother' look. "Well you're going to promise me."

Cherise looked at him to see if he was serious. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Leonardo said sternly. "I want you to promise that you'll not go up top to see your father."

Cherise jumped off the couch. "Where do you…" She wanted to tell the blue clad turtle off, but she had the feel he'd be the same as Casey. "Alright."

"No, I want to hear you say I promise." Leonardo told her.

"Fine." Cherise sighed. "I…."

"Wait." Leonardo put a hand out to stop her. "Hold out your arms and separate you legs a little."

"Leo!" Cherise exclaimed.

"I have three brothers." Leonardo pointed out. "I know all about the different way to interpret 'King's Cross'."

Cherise gave a frustrated sigh as she put her hands up into the air and moved her legs about an inch apart. "There, see?" She huffed. "I promise. Happy now?"

"I'm only doing this for your own good." Leonardo said sternly.

"I suppose." Cherise replied.

"Hey Leo, whatchya doing to Cherise?" Michelangelo asked while coming towards the young girl and his brother. "Sticking her up?"

"I'm just making sure that she's promising to do as Casey said." Leonardo answered before going off.

Cherise lowered her arms while flopping back down onto the couch. "He's making me kinda glad that I'm an only child."

"Aw, he's alright." Michelangelo said while sitting down next to the young girl. "You get use to his older brotherness after awhile." Cherise simply smiled at the turtle.

**Early the next morning…**

When the turtles were preparing for Ninjitsu practice Cherise saw it as her chance to leave the lair unnoticed. She didn't know when the hospital's visiting hours were and she didn't care, she'd wait outside the building if she had to. However the young girl was caught while leaving through the front door.

"Hey Cherise." Michelangelo said loudly and the young girl cringed. "Where are you going?"

"Shhh." Cherise hissed while waving her hands at him. "You tryin' to bring attention or something?"

Michelangelo pretended to ignore her. "You're not trying to go up and see your dad now, are you?" He said at the same volume as when he greeted her.

"You know I am." Cherise chided. "Now tone it down before…"

"Leo finds out?" Michelangelo questioned with voice lowered a bit. "You don't want him to know that you're breaking your promise to him, do you?"

"I had a 'King's Cross'." Cherise replied defensively. "My shoelaces were crossed."

"So…" Michelangelo looked at the girl oddly. "That's got to be the worse loophole I've ever heard."

"It was the only thing crossed." Cherise retorted. "I couldn't cross anything else with him looking at me like he did."

"Good point." Michelangelo answered. "But still, you did promise."

"Ok, you're right." Cherise agreed. "But I just said, 'I promise'. I didn't say what I was promising."

Michelangelo couldn't decide whether he wanted to laugh or smack his forehead. "I'm the king of loop holes and I've never thought up trying that. Good one." Then he put a serious look on. "But why are you so desperate to see your dad anyway? It not like you can do anything for him."

"You don't know that." Cherise replied. "Maybe there is a chance I can bring him around…or something." She saw the orange clad turtle look at her skeptically. "Look, I just can stand around and do nothing. If there's something I can do, than I got to do it."

Michelangelo put his hands up in defeat. "Fine." It was obvious that the girl had made up her mind to see her father and was determine to do it no matter what. "But you should know that it's no use going out now." He told her. "With Ninjitsu practice out in the middle of the lair, there is now way you can sneak out of here without Leo and Master Splinter knowing. The elevator and the front door a pretty noisy."

"So when is a good time?" Cherise asked curiously.

Michelangelo wrapped an arm around the young girl's shoulders. "Just stick with me babe." Cherise cocked an eyebrow at him. "Look, this is what we'll do…." He whispered his plan into her ear.

**Sometime in afternoon…**

Donatello was working in his lab as usual with Cherise came wandering. "Dante-Chan?"

The purple clad turtle immediately straightened up. "Dante-Chan?" He gulped. "That could only mean one thing." He turned around to see the young girl stand before him. Her long hair in a tight braid, hands behind her back, and looking at him with wide puppy dog eyes. "Oh no. You've been talking to Mikey, haven't you?"

Cherise blinked a couple of times. "Me?" She asked innocently. "Why would I talk to that mischief maker?" She slowly walked up to the mutant turtle and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm here cause I need to ask you a little favor." The young girl said in a sweet voice. Then she brought up the end of her braid so in order to tickle the bottom of his chin with it.

Donatello heldthe girlaway at arms length. "I know Mikey's handwork when I see it." He told herwith blushing cheeks and steam coming out fromthe openingofshell that was around his neck. "Whatever he wants, he's not going to get just cause he's asking to come onto me."

Cherise looked absolutely shocked. "You think I'm that kind of girl?" She exclaimed while knocking the turtle's hand off. "You think that I would come onto any guy just to get something in return? How dare you say such a thing."

"What…I…that is…I mean…" Donatello stuttered to find the right words to defend putting his foot in his mouth. "It's just that…Mikey…I…"

"If that's the way you're going to be than…" Cherise turned her back on him and started to walk away.

"No wait." Donatello grabbed her arm. "What is it you need?"

A sly smile came onto Cherise's face. '_I can't believe that work. Michael is so mean_.' She put on a stern look when turning around to face the turtle. "I need help getting outta here so I can go up top to see dad."

Donatello smacked his head. "I knew it." He grumbled. "I knew I was being played." The turtle glared at the girl. "He taught you how to push my buttons, didn't he?"

"Hey, give me some credit here. I already know how to con people when I need to and I've done twice already." Cherise scolded. "Besides, he said to call you Don-San to be respectful or be cute and call you Donnie-Kun. However I decided Dante-Chan was both cute _and_ respectful." She shook Donatello's hand off her arm while giving him a serious gaze. "Look, I wasn't going to drag anyone into this, unfortunately…Michael caught me and said that it would be best if I didn't go alone."

Donatello cocked an eyebrow at the young girl. "Michael?"

"Michelangelo is such a mouthful to pronounce." Cherise explained. "And Mikey makes me thing of that Life cereal commercial."

"But still…Michael?" Donatello mouthed the name a couple times, trying to get a feel for it.

"Oh let's just move on." Cherise snapped. "Point is that he wanted to take me, but knew that Leo would catch on if it was just him and me."

"So Mikey said to con me into becoming some sort of front, right?" Donatello rolled his eyes as he turned his back to the girl.

"If you don't want to do it, just say so." Cherise told him. "I can understand."

Donatello thought for moment before giving a sigh. "Naw, I'll help you." He told her. "I mean I do kind of owe you one."

"You don't owe me anything anymore." Cherise said sternly. "You and your family have repaid whatever debt you owe by just letting me stay here. So don't do this if you feel have to."

Donatello thought for another moment. "There is no obligation, I'd be happy to help."

Cherise gave the turtle a peck on the cheek. "Thanks."

**That Evening….**

Donatello, dressed in his human clothing, was grumbling under his breath as he adjusted the shoulder strap of his duffle bag. His complaining was loud enough to catch Leonardo's attention as he passed by the subway car lab. "What's the matter?" The blue clad turtle asked with mild concern.

"Mikey." Donatello snorted. "Couldn't keep out of my lab and upset one of my projects. Now I got to go to the junkyard and search for those nearly impossible to find parts so I can fix it."

"Must have been some project if it's got you this upset." Leonardo commented. "Need help?"

"No, I'm taking Mikey with." Donatello replied. "Since he broke it, he's going to help me fix it."

"Is that wise?" Leonardo questioned. "The last thing Mikey does when we go to the junkyard is help."

Donatello clutched a screwdriver so tight in anger that Leonardo felt the sudden urge to back away slowly from his heated brother. "If he knows what's good for him, he'd better help." The purple clad turtle threatened while leaving is lab.

Leonardo followed Donatello over to the alien elevator, where Michelangelo was waiting. He was also dressed in human clothing and looking absolutely miserable and even worse when he saw his angry brother coming towards him. "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

"The first hundred weren't enough and I don't see the next hundred being sufficient either." Donatello pushed past his youngest brother to get into the elevator.

"Your really blew it this time." Leonardo whispered.

"I know." Michelangelo sobbed. "And Donnie says we're going to have to stay out there until we find all the replacement parts." The young turtle dragged his feet as he went into the elevator.

"Well…good luck." Leonardo told them. Donatello let out a snort while Michelangelo gulped hard.

The elevator doors were about to close whenCherise showed up. "Hey you guys, what's going on?"

"Mikey broke something Don was working on and now they both have to go look for parts to replace it." Leonardo told her.

"Oh?" Cherise looked into the elevator. "Can I come with you guys?"

"We're going to the junkyard in the near dead of winter." Donatello told her sternly. "I don't think you'd enjoy the trip."

"He's right." Leonardo agreed. "You should stay here where it's warm. After all, you just got over being sick."

"Aw, but I've been cooped up in here all day." Cherise semi-whined. "I need some fresh air and open space. I don't care where it is, just as long as I can get it." She looked pleadingly at the blue clad turtle. "Please let me go out. I'll dress up warmly."

"I don't know." Leonardolooked skeptically at the young girl before looking over at his brothers. Donatello scowled at his troublemaking sibling while rubbing his right fist with his left hand. It was as if he was daring Michelangelo to ask for such a special request so that he could pop him a good one in the head. Such anger in his usually calm brother made the elder turtle worry that his young brother might actually not come back from the trip to the junkyard. "On second thought…maybe you should."

Cherise let out a squeal and threw her arms around the turtle's neck. "Thank you Leo."

Leonardo pulled her off to the side. "Don't thank me for this." He told her. "Cause you _don't_ know what you're getting yourself into."

"I don't?" Cherise questioned. "What do you mean?"

"Donnie rarely gets mad and I've never seen him likethisbefore." Leonardo replied. "The only reason I'm letting you go is to make sure that Mikey will be coming back in one piece."

"So you want me to baby-sit them?" Cherise asked. "Why don't you want to do it?"

"Knowing Mikey, the minute he gets out into the snow he's going to want to play in it no matter how mad anyone is with him." Leonardo answered. "Better to have someone who could keep him occupied and out of Don's way."

"Ooooh. Okay." Cherise nodded. "I'll try to do my best." She ran off to get a warm winter coat that one of the guys had lent her for any time she had to up top. Then she hoped into the elevator while putting it on.

"Hope I get to see you guys sometime before Spring." Leonardo joshed as the doors were closing.

Donatello snorted a reply and Michelangelo didn't dare to say anything. "I just hope we come back." Cherise replied.

There was an uneasy quiet as the three of them rode up to the street level garage. After they filed out of the alien elevator they climbed into the Battle Shell. Once the doors were closed and everyone buckled into their seats, laughter broke out as the armored truck on its way out.

"I can't believe we pulled that off." Michelangelo exclaimed. "My heart was beating so hard and fast."

"I know." Cherise replied. "I'm not a ninjitsu anything and I could hear it. I even thought it was going to beat right out of your chest."

"Nice planning Donnie." Michelangelo congratulated. "I would have never thought up having Leo actually tell Cherise to come with us."

"Flags would have been sent up if I simply asked for her to come with us." Donatello explained.

"That was some acting though." Cherise admitted. "For a moment there, I thought you were really angry and that Michael really did break something." Both Donatello and Michelangelo mouthed 'Michael' a couple of times. "You guys are never going to get over that, are you?"

Suddenly a Shell Cell went of and all three beings froze. "Um…you don't think Leo caught on…do you?" Michelangelo asked.

"I'll answer it." Cherise said while holding out her hand to Michelangelo. "Donnie is supposed to be too mad and you're supposed to be upset." She took a cell from the turtle. "Hello?"

"Patched me inta da speaker." A gruff voice ordered.

"Ok…" Cherise handed the cell back to its owner. "It's Raph. He said to put him onto speaker?"

Michelangelo looked nervously over at Donatello before doing as he was told. "Yes Raphie?" He asked innocently.

"Nicely ya played two." Raphael said sternly. "But ya know Leo ain't gonna be too happy when he finds out dat you made fool of him like dat. Or should I say, if he finds out."

"What's it going to cost?" Donatello inquired.

"Oh, I'll think of sumpthin' later." Raphael said with a bit of an evil laughter before hanging up. This caused Donatello and Michelangelo exchange worried looks with each other.

* * *

_A/N: I feel kind of bad that this chapter came out. Cause that only means about one more chapter or so before the end of my story. _TT _Oh well, all good things must come to an end I guess. But I bet you all are wondering how I'll end this one, right?_


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: It would seem that I made Cherise out to be a bit of a brat in the last chapter, which surprise me cause I didn't mean for her to. Hopefully she can redeem herself in this chapter._**

* * *

**

**Chapter Twelve**

"We shouldn't part in the lot." Cherise advised as the Battle Shell neared the hospital. "Casey never told me when he would go see my dad and I haven't seen him at all today. So there's a possibility he might bet there right now."

Donatello nodded in agreement. "Right. Wouldn't want him to know we're here and then call up Leo on us." He turned the large vehicle into an alley that was within walking distance of the hospital and turned the ignition off.

"However…if Leo found out then we wouldn't have to owe Raph anything." Michelangelo pointed out.

"I think I'd rather deal with Raph blackmailing us over confronting Leo." Donatello admitted. "Somehow it just feels safer that way."

"Why are you guys worried about what Leo will do to you?" Cherise inquired. "It's not like you were lying to him about where you were going."

"What do you mean we weren't lying to him?" Donatello snapped. "Of course we did. I mean here we are at the hospital."

"Yeah." Cherise answered. "But you're only dropping me off. Then you guys can go to the junkyard like you told him."

"Wait a minute." Michelangelo interjected. "If you think we're going to let you go in there by yourself, you have another thing coming."

"You're not talking about coming in with me are you!" Cherise exclaimed with wide eyes. "No way. Uh uh. For-get-it" She shook her head fiercely. "There is no way I'm not going to let you guys come in with me."

"And why not?" Michelangelo asked. "We want to see Marcus too."

"But this is a hospital full of people." Cherise replied sternly. "If they see your green skin they are going to think something is wrong with you. And if they find out you're not human it could mean a one way trip to some laboratory."

Donatello turned around to face the young girl. "Relax. We've been out in public before." He told her. "We'll just keep our faces covered with our scarves and hands in our pockets."

"Besides we're ninjas. Invisibility is our middle name." Michelangelo added.

"I…dunno." Cherise said as she looked at the two turtles skeptically. "Are you sure about this?" Their replied expressions were full of assurance. "Alright then, let's go."

Three climbed out of the Battle Shell and walked up to the hospital. When they go there Cherise asked a man behind the reception desk where she could find out where her father was. He smiled kindly at her before looking up Marcus in the computer. When the man found the room he offered to have someone show her where it was, but Cherise politely declined. She saw how he was curiously looking at her companions and didn't want to give anyone else a chance to get a close look at them.

After getting lost a few times the small group managed to find the section and room where Marcus was. Cherise stood in the doorway, building up the courage to enter. A passing female nurse happened to see the young girl and friends standing there. "Excuse me, but unless your family you can't stand here."

"My dad is in there." Cherise told the nurse. "I'm just trying gather up the guts to enter."

"Oh?" The nurse said with a cocked eyebrow. "Your uncle had just left here not too long ago. But I'm sure he isn't out of the building yet. If you like, I could have the front desk keep an eye out from and send him back up here so he can take you in."

"No!" Cherise shouted, causing the nurse to look at her suspiciously. "I…uh…know my uncle has somewhere important to be. I don't want to detain him. Besides, I have my friends here for support."

The nurse nodded. "Well if you need anything, just let me know." She said before going on her way.

Cherise took a deep breath while entering room. "Here we go." Not being prepared to see the state her father was in, the young girl's legs automatically lock when she set eyes on him. Had the two turtles not been behind her and caught her when she became suddenly light headed, Cherise would have hit the floor. They helped the young girl onto a couch that was near the end of the hospital bed before looking over at Marcus.

Seeing the man whom they considered their rescuer, Donatello and Michelangelo felt like passing out as well and quickly had to sit down on the couch with Cherise. Never in their life had they seen such a thing in real life, only on television or in a movie. But this…this was real and it scared them, because the man in the hospital bed looked nothing like the man they once knew.

Marcus was tucked tightly in and had a ventilator tube was taped into his mouth so that he could be kept breathing. His brown hair was at least neck length, not shoulder like it once was. (It was probably shaven off when surgery had to be done on his head and it was just now growing back.) And the hair looked to be brittle enough to break at the slightest touch. The middle aged man's body, being deprived of proper nutrition, seemed a little smaller and flabby from lack of exercise. With no sunlight Marcus's skin was a ghostly pale, almost as white as the sheets that covered him. Coming out from under the sheets were two other hoses, one was a catheter and the other was a feeding tube.

Donatello was the only one able to speak after a few minutes. "…wow." He was glad nothing had come up with he opened his mouth.

"But…he was so big, so tall." Michelangelo stammered. "He was like…a giant."

"That was back when we were nine." Donatello pointed out. "We've grown since then."

"But even so." Michelangelo replied. "He…he had these big strong arms and…he was able to pick us up with such ease, remember?" The orange clad turtle sounded like was trying to convince himself as well as his brother. "And…and…remember when he tossed up? Remember how high we went?"

Donatello shook his head slight. "Again, we were little, so of course it felt like we were miles from the floor." He wanted to agree with what Michelangelo was saying, but some sickening feel told him that his brother was not right.

Cherise began rocking back and forth while hugging herself tightly. "It's not him. It's not him." She said in a trance like state. "It's not him. It's not him."

"She's right. We have the wrong room." Michelangelo said in agreement as he jumped up from the couch. "And she ought to know, cause this _is_ her father." He quickly pulled the young girl up from the couch. "Let's get outta here and find the right one."

That argument would have convince Donatello that maybe a mistake had happen, if it were for the fact that he spied a chart at the end of the bed. "Mikey…" He picked it up and showed the name on the chart to his brother, it said Marcus Bard. "It's him."

Cherise continued to chant, 'It's not him' while Michelangelo looked at the chart. "No…" He shook his head. "Casey…Casey must have the wrong guy." Practically supporting the young girl on him, he tried to drag her out of the hospital room.

However the young turtle could not get far with someone blocking his path. "I thought I made it clear she ain't suppose ta be here." Casey said sternly as he stood in the doorway with arms crossed.

Michelangelo put a nervous smile. "Casey." He gave a small chuckle. "We…uh…thought you were gone by…(ahem)…now."

Casey closed the door with a small slam. "I was on my way outta here, but someone at da front desk said dat dey got a call from this ward askin' if I could come back." He answered heated. "I thought dat maybe da guy woke up, but no. I get told dat my niece was here and da nurse who called for me ta come back thought I should be in here with her, just in case she couldn't handle it." Casey glanced at Cherise angrily. "Turns out dey were right and so was I." He took hold of the girl's chin so that she had to look him in the face. "I told ya dat ya couldn't handle sumpthin' like dis. But ya had ta have yer own way, didn't ya?"

Cherise slapped Casey's hand way from her face. "You had no right to deny me seeing my dad! And had you let me seen him in the first place, I could have told you that that man…" She pointed to the guy in the bed. "…that that man _is not_ my dad."

Casey's angry glare was replaced with a sympatric one. "But it is." He took the picture Cherise had used to help find Marcus. "I've spent all day in here starin' at dis and at him, comparin' 'em see if maybe I was wrong…hopin' dat I was wrong."

"And you are wrong." Cherise cried while tears trickled down her cheeks. "You are wrong."

"But I'm not." Casey told the young girl. "I had dem bring up all his affects dat dey took from him da day he came in and found da tie he had in da picture."

"So." Cherise snapped. "There were many ties like that. This poor man has to be someone else's dad, cause he's not mine."

Casey took hold of Cherise's shoulders. "I even called Belinda, yer father's secretary." The girl looked at him with wide eyes, she didn't remember even telling the dark haired man her father was a veterinarian. "April looked up yer father and found a number to call. So I did and she came in. At first she didn't want to admit it, but she did."

"NO!" Cherise shouted while smack Casey's hands off her. "That not him! It's not him!" She sobbed while beating on the man's chest. "It's not! It's not! It's not!" He let Cherise beat on him until she wore herself out and caught the girl when her knees suddenly buckled.

Casey took Cherise over to the couch. "Dis da reason I didn't want ya ta come here." He said quietly as he had a seat next to Donatello and helped the girl sit down next to him.

Cherise leaned on Casey. "Why?" She cried into the man's chest. "Why did this happen to him? He's a good man, never went out to hurt anyone. So why did someone do this to him?"

"I don't know kid." Casey replied as he hugged the girl tightly. "Some people just ain't got no hearts." He rested his chin top of her head as she continued to cry.

Michelangelo, finally accepting the fact that the man in the bed was Marcus, leaned up against the wall next to the couch. He folded his arms across his plastron while pressing one foot onto the wall. Donatello put his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together. He bent forward a little so that he could press his lips on his folded index fingers.

It was quiet for a while, save for Cherise's sniffling every now and then, until a male nurse came into the room. "I'm afraid I have to tell you that visiting hours will be over in a few minutes."

"I…I want to stay here…with my dad." Cherise said hoarsely. "I know I'm allowed to stay, so that's what I wanna do."

"I should tell you that it could be very uncomfortable." The nurse warned. "There are no beds that can be placed within this room. You'll just have the one chair by the bed and couch."

"I don't care." Cherise replied. "I…probably wouldn't be able to sleep anyway."

"Alright, if that is what you want." The nurse answered. "I'll get you some pillows and some blankets just in case you want to try though." He left the room and closed the door behind him.

"I call dibs on the couch with Cherise." Michelangelo said as he tried to push his way next to the girl.

Cherise looked at the young turtle like he was crazy. "You're not staying." She told him sternly.

Michelangelo looked back at the girl with raised eyebrows. "Say what?"

"There's no way we're leaving you here by yourself." Donatello replied.

"Right." Michelangelo agreed with a nod of his head. "If you're going to spend the night here, then so are we."

"No." Cherise said firmly. "No you are not."

"You can't make us leave." Donatello answered heatedly. "If we want to stay, then we're going to stay."

"If you don't go, I'll call Leo on you two and tell him that it was your idea to trick him." Cherise threatened.

"But you're the one that wanted to sneak out." Michelangelo reminded.

"And it was supposed to be just me." Cherise replied. "You're the one that wanted to take me here and insisted that Don had to help get us out."

"Well it's not like she can really call Leo." Donatello stated knowingly. "She doesn't know the numbers to the Shell Cells. So her threat is an empty one."

Cherise showed that she had a Shell Cell in her hand. "I picked this off Casey." She told everyone. "And I know how to use it." Casey patted himself down and was surprised that the girl was right.

"Now this is just not fair." Michelangelo complained. "We should be allowed to stay just as much as you."

"Will you think about things for a moment?" Cherise scolded. "What if something happens that will make you guys show what you really are?" She looked over at Don. "What if your hood falls off?" The girl looked over at Mike. "What if you get too hot for that jacket and take it off while a nurse or doctor comes in here?" Cherise pointed over toward her father. "Six years ago he rescued you guys from an abandon apartment building and brought you to our home so you wouldn't be discovered by anyone else and end up as some science experiment. How is putting yourself at the exactly same risk now repayment for what he did then?"

Michelangelo opened his mouth to counter, however he didn't know what to say. He looked over at his brother for back up, but Donatello had nothing to counteract with either. "She's got a point." The purple clad turtle admitted.

Casey stood up and stretched. "Come on, I walk with ya out." He waved a hand to beckon the two turtles onward.

"Is she going to be alright being here by herself?" Michelangelo questioned as he stepped out of the room behind the young man. "Maybe you should stay with her."

Casey shook his head. "Nah. I have a feeling she'll be just fine." He answered. "She's much older den I was when I had ta see my dad like dat."

Before leaving the room Donatello observed Cherise sitting down in the chair next to her father's bed. He watched as the young girl undid the tucked covers so that she could take her father's hands out from under them, clasp it in both of hers, and touch the bony knuckles to her lips. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah." Cherise said with a sigh into the hand she held.

Donatello put up a hand while leaving the room. Then he and Michelangelo followed Casey out of the hospital. From there the three gave a wave goodbye before splitting up to leave. At first the ride home in the Battle Shell was quiet until Michelangelo says, "Looks like Raph can't blackmail us anymore."

"How do you figure?"

"We're going back home with no Cherise and Leo is going to wonder where she is. That means we're going to have to tell him that we took her to the hospital so that we can also tell him that we left her there to sit with her dad."

"Er…oh yeah."

When they got back to the lair and parked the Battle Shell, the two turtles took the elevator down to the lair. The alien double doors open to reveal that the place was dark except for a solitary lit candle on the coffee table over in the television area. Light from the candle illuminated an armchair that was behind it, the one belonging to Master Splinter.

However candle could not show who was in the chair. "S…sensei?" Donatello stammered. "Is...that you?" Whoever sat in the chair did not answer with their voice, but rather with the sound of a whetstone running alone steel. "L...Leo?" Again the sound of the sharpening steel was made.

"Why does this feel like something outta a movie?" Michelangelo joshed nervously, hoping to ease the tension.

Donatello gave his brother a shove. "Getting Cherise outta here was your idea, so you go talk to him."

"Me?" Michelangelo squealed. "You're better at keeping people calm, you go talk to him." Once more the sound of the whetstone on steel rang throughout the lair, sending a chill down the spines of the two quarreling turtles and it got them to stop fighting.

"We'll both go." Donatello said and Michelangelo nodded in agreement. From the elevator to the television area, the purple clad kept a tight grip on his young brother so that orange clad turtle couldn't ditch him. Then the two turtles had a seat on the couch across from the armchair. Donatello swallowed hard before saying, "Now Leo…I know you're mad, but…you see…" A katana edge entered the yellow-white orb the candle produced and the light hit the blade in such of way to show how sharp it really was. "Um…why don't you say something Mikey."

All Michelangelo could do was stammer. "Um…uh…see…"

Suddenly the blade swung through the air with such force that a swift wind could be felt coming from the action. Both of turtles yelp with fright other as the katana swung by, missing them by mere inches, and took out the candle. Then there was a clap, making the lights come on to reveal Donatello and Michelangelo hugging each other.

"Bwahahahaha!" Raphael laughed. "Oh man, ya should see each other." He dropped Leo's katana blade as he doubled over in the armchair.

Leonardo stood up from behind the armchair. "Wish I could have seen it." He held his other katana and a whetstone.

"Don't worry." Raphael choked through his laughter. "I set up a camera with night vision so we could capture dis."

Realizing that they were still hugging, Donatello and Michelangelo pushed away from each others. "That was not very funny." Donatello said sternly.

"Yeah, well neither was the stunt you pulled earlier this evening." Leonardo retorted as he came around the chair. "I could expect something like that from Mikey, but you Donnie?" He put both his katanas back in their sheaths.

"Cherise really wanted to see her dad." Donatello explained. "If you and Casey couldn't convince her otherwise, what makes you think Mikey or I could."

"Well I would think that you would have at least tried." Leonardo replied.

"If it really was that big a deal about not letting Cherise go, don't you think Master Splinter would have also order her not to go?" Michelangelo questioned. "You know he didn't say anything either way."

Leonardo went to say something, but realized that his youngest brother was right. Master Splinter did not agree or disagree with Casey's decision on letting Cherise see her father in the hospital. This also made him realize that he hadn't seen his sensei before or after coming near Donatello's lab that evening. "I guess you have a point there."

"But should ya guys have left her der?" Raphael asked.

"She wanted to stay." Donatello answered with a shrug. "Maybe it's her way of deal with the situation."

"Well whatever the reason for having to go see her dad, she's accomplished it." Leonardo said. "So since is nothing else we can do for right now, I suggest that we all go to bed."

Agreeing with the idea the turtles filed up the stair for their rooms starting with Michelangelo and ending with Raphael. But before they got too far Michelangelo turned around to look at Leonardo, who was behind Donatello. "How did you know that Donnie and I played you anyway?"

"I heard Raph make the blackmailing call." Leonardo replied nonchalantly. "He wasn't really being none to discreet about it.

"Oh." Michelangelo turned back around and went up the rest of the stairs with Donatello close behind.

"Yo Leo." Raphael whispered while grabbing the back of his brother's shell. "Want ta watch a late night horror flick?" He asked while pointing a thumb towards a camera with a grin going from ear to ear.

"Sure…why not." Leonardo answered before match the same grin his brother had.

**Somewhere about 3 or 4 in morning…**

The sound of a Shell Cell goes off in one of the turtles' room. (Ring Ring) However it is not answered right away. "ZZZZ." Again it goes off, (Ring Ring). Covers are pulled tight around the head. "…." (Ring Ring) The head digs under the pillow it once laid on. (Ring Ring) The pillow and blankets are thrown off. "I'm up…." And a hand reached for the clock, tilting it up to look at the time. "Meh…" (Ring Ring) "It had better not be Casey, that's all I have to say." The ringing Shell Cell is finally answered. "What!"

"I…I didn't mean to walk you." Cherise whispered. "It's just that…I've been talking to dad for a while and now I wanted…rather…I need to talk to someone who will talk back."

The turtle let out a yawn before rudely saying, "And you picked me, because…"

"I just pushed a button and you were the one I got." Cherise cleared her throat a bit. "But if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. I'll…um…"

"Nah…talk to me." The turtle rubbed one of his tired eyes. "What's on your mind?"

"I dunno." Cherise answered timidly. "Nothing…everything…questions I guess."

"What kind?"

"One actually…. Why?"

"Why what?"

"I dunno. I guess I'm still wonder why my dad? I mean, of all the people in the world why target him? When I haven't been trying to converse with my dad, I've been wondering what he did that was so bad that it made someone hate him enough that they would try to kill him."

"I can't really answer that."

"I know. It's just that…" Suddenly Cherise let out a gasp.

The turtle straightened up in the bed. "What? What is it?"

"Daddy?" Cherise whispered. "Daddy!" There was a sound like Cherise jumping up out of her chair. Another sound that followed which was maybe the Shell Cell hitting the floor. "Daddy!"

The turtle jumped out of bed while yelling into the cell. "Cherise? Cherise what is it? Tell me what's going on. Cherise?" He pressed the ear piece of the phone as close to his head as possible, trying to hear anything that could clue him in as to what might be happening. "Shell it Cherise, answer me!" But no answer comes, because the line was dead.

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_A/N2: Uh-oh, something has happened. Hopefully you'll believe me when I tell you that I didn't mean for this chapter to end like this, but maybe it's good thatit did._

_BTW: Bet you can't guess who Cherise is talking to._


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Believe it or not folks, but I finally finished another chapter. (yay!) Gads I can't believe it took me this long to do it, but I was having a shell of a time getting it to come out right and not so complicated. Hopefully I've accomplish that.

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**Chapter Thirteen**

'_This thing all things devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; grind hard stone to meal; slays kings, ruins towns, and beats high mountain down._'Anyone who knows this age old riddle wouldsay that the answer istime.But what's to really know about time, other that it's just as complicated as the riddle itself?Well it has no feelings so it can'tcryand it can't mourn, in fact it wouldn't even bat an eye at whatever happens during it. Alien invasion,nemesis banished, andinner demons conquered are all irrelevant to this thing calledtime. And if stuff like that won't maketime stop to care, whatwouldsomething else just as affectivekeep it from moving on?

Speaking of moving on, that what the turtles had to do when their lair was destroyed by Karai. At first they didn't dare come back to the Elentyan lair or any other part of the downtown Manhattan in case it was still under Footsurveillance. But after a good while later the turtles believed it was safe enough to venture back and see what they could salvage for their new place at the old pumping station over in Central Park.

It wassearching through all the wreckage that Michelangelo happened to unbury a box filled with what used to be tapes; all crushed and covers torn. About to write the box off as just junkhe spotted two names written on the side of it, Marcus and Cherise. Seeing those names made the young turtle give want to rummaging through the box, even though he knew there was nothing usable with in it.However he didn't know why he wanted to; maybe it was out of nostalgia. But whatever it was that made him do it, it was going through the box that had him come across a folded piece of paper. Cocking an eyebrow the young turtle brought the paper out and unfolded it to find it was a note written on hospital notepaper.

'_My friends,  
__Please forgive me for saying good-bye like this. Really I would have wanted to do it in person, but I think that if I did that I'd never have the strength to leave. I'm sorry this is the way, but please understand that I feel the need to get through this on my own…work this all out using my own inner strength. It will be hard…and if you were to offer support, help, I would have gladly accepted. But you all have done so much for me already that I couldn't bring myself to burden you further. I mean you took me into your home, cured my fever, and fed me. Then you help me find my dad and sat with me while he was... Thank you, thank you for everything. Someday I'll send word or better yet I'll call so we can meet up again and you can see how things are. I promise.  
__Signed with love, Cherise._'

Once more a depressing sigh came from the young turtle's lips as he remembered some things from his past. '_He was woken up from an strange dream dealing with a pool full of popcorn and a model, whose name he couldn't place, by a fight going on outside his room. Interested in what the fight (that was happening at near four in the morning) was about, yet not wanting to be caught ease-dropping, stuck his ear to the door._

_Leonardo's authorize voice was immediately recognized. "You should call Casey. He can go check on her."_

"_Can't." Donatello's voice answered. "She's got his cell."_

"_I know, I'll call April." Raphael's voice said._

Just as Michelangelo was about to remember going out of his room to question his brothers, a hand came down onto his shoulder. It was Leonardo and he was quite miffed that his youngest brother let himself get distracted from the task at hand. "What are you doing?" He asked sternly.

"I found this." Michelangelo showed his elder brother the note.

Leonardo's eyes lower as he looked at the small piece of paper. "Oh…yeah." This got him to remember that night. '_There was banging, non-stop, on a door before it was slammed open. After hearing muffled squabbling for a few minutes,he decided he had to get out of his nice warm bed and solve whatever was going on outside his room._

_As he opened his door he heard his brother with the unmistakable Brooklyn accent. "I'm tellin' ya, sumpthin' happen ta whats-his-name."_

"_Marcus?" Donatello questioned. "What?"_

"_I dunno." Raphael replied. "Dat's why I need ta know whose cell she's got. So I can call her up again."_

"_If something major is going down over there, she's not going to answer." Donatello pointed out._

"_Well what do you suggest we do?"_

It was when Leonardo was going out of his room to find out what was the matter that his reminiscence got interrupted by his youngest brother. "It's been no word from her for so long. You'd thinking that she would have written or called by now."

"She's got a painful time to work through." Leonardo reminded. "And she never did give us a deadline on when she would ever call, so we have to be patient and wait for her to make the first move."

Michelangelo nodded slowly. "I know, it just that I wish I knew how she was handling herself."

"Cherise is tough." Leonardo replied. "I'm sure things are going just fine."

Coming out of what use to be his room, Raphael saw his brother talking and went over to find out about what. "What ya got der guys?" He asked when he saw that Michelangelo was holding something. The orange clad responded by showing his brotherthe note and the red clad turtle gave a snort. "Ya know I was just startin' ta ferget her. Thanks a lot for da reminder."

Michelangelo was surprised bythe reaction "What's your problem?" He questioned heatedly. "Don't you care?"

"Da past should just stay where it belongs, in da past." Raphael retorted. "No sense unburyin' it."

"Why don't you just admit that you miss her as much as the rest of us?" Donatello joshed while looking up from the remains of his lab.

"Cause I don't." Raphael snapped.

"What rubbing your shell the wrong way?" Michelangelo questioned.

"Ya wanna know?" Raphael asked rhetorically. "It's cause she didn't have da decency ta tell us she was leavin' or dat she was even thinkin' about it. She just left."

"It's not like she really could you know." Michelangelo replied. "I mean with all that was going on, where would she have found the time?"

"She could have made da time." Raphael answered angrily. "And if she really cared, she woulda." With a grunt the red clad turtle folded his arms across his chest. "Now are we done? Can we go?Cause I don't wanna hang around here any longer den we have ta, cause I still have a feelin' dat da Foot might actually still be around."

"I suppose we should." Leonardo replied. "It doesn't look like there's much we could salvage from here anyway."

On the way back home Michelangelo gave Donatello a nudge. "Say, you have a good memory. Do you remember that night? The night Cherise called."

Donatello nodded in reply. He remembered the night alright, remembered it as if it were yesterday. In fact, if his calculations were right, that night would have been yesterday…two years ago. '_The banging on his door was thunderous; not to mention annoying. At first he tried to block it out in hopes that whoever it was would give up and go away. Sadly the knocking was too loud to ignore, which meant if he had better go answer if he wanted to get anymore sleep. However, whenhe had just barely touched the doorknob, he got 'help' from his brother. "You know, I was perfect capable of open my own door." The young turtle said miffedly, due to the fact that he almost got smacked in the beak by his own door. "What do you want?"_

"_Which cell did ya give Chrissy?" Raphael asked anxiously._

"_You woke me up for that?" Donatello questioned crossly. "I'm going back to bed." He went to close his door, but was stopped._

"_It's important." Raphael said sternly while holding the door open. "Sumpthin' happened down at da hospital."_

"_How do you know?"_

"_She called and was talkin' ta me when suddenly she started yellin'. I asked what was da matter, but she wouldn't tell me."_

"_Why was she calling you?"_

"_I don't know. She claims dat she was just pushin' buttons and got me, but I think it's sumpthin' else."_

_Donatello eyed his brother. "Or so you want it to be." He said slyly and it made Raphael's face fluster._' The tech-knowing turtle's remising was broken thereby a surprise guest standing at the entrance of the lair.

It was Casey with huge grin on his face practically going from ear to ear. "Ya'll never guess who called?"

"Oh, I know." Michelangelo piped. "It was the zoo. They want you stop hitting on the female apes. Right?"

Casey raised a hand, threatening to smack the orange clad turtle and then dropped it. "Fer yer information, it was Cherise."

Michelangelo eyes shot wide open. "Really?" He wrapped an arm around his human friend. "Casey, old buddy. How's it going?"

The dark haired man rolled his eyes. "Oh now dat I have sumpthin' ya want, ya treat me nice."

"So how is she doing?" Donatello questioned. "Everything alright now?"

"She sounded ok." Casey replied. "But we can find out how she's doin' when we all go ta visit her up at my grandma's house.

"How did you decided on meeting there?" Leonardo asked.

"She and I figure it was a good place, cause it would be easy fer her ta get der." Casey explained. "I mean she's already up dat way anyway."

Master Splinter came up to the group. "Is there a time at which we are to all meet?"

"She says ta let her know when we get der." Casey answered. "I figure if we leave soon we can make it ta grandma's by evenin' and probably see her da next day."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Michelangelo exclaimed. "Let's go already."

Raphael wasn't in as big as hurry. "Why did she call ya and not one of us?"

"Does it really matter?" Donatello inquired.

"Yes." Raphael replied while eyeing his human friend.

Casey rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well she did asked me ta apologize fer not callin' ya personally, cause sumpthin' happen ta da cell she had. At some point she was made ta drop it and it broke. Bein' as she didn't know how ta contact any of ya without it, she looked up April's business in da phonebook and called her. I happen ta have been with April when Cherise called, so I was able ta take it. If I wasn't der I'm sure dat April woulda been da one down here tellin' ya da great new."

"Speaking of April, where is she?" Leonardo asked curiously.

"She up in her van." Casey answered. "We're just as anxious ta see how Cherise was doin'. So we got a bunch of stuff tagether and now we're just waitin' on ya."

"Then let us not waste any time." Master Splinter said

Quickly everyone did what they needed in order be ready for the long ride; including going to the bathroom and having something to read/do during the drive. However not everyone was eager about leaving. "Hey Raph, ya ain't moved yet." Casey stated when he saw his friend still standing where he was. "Ain't ya need ta get anythin'?"

"I…I don't think I wanna go." Raphael replied quietly.

"What!" Casey semi-bellowed. "What do ya mean ya don't wanna go? Ain't ya wonderin' about Chrissie?" The red clad turtle made no attempt to answer. "Don't tell me dat yer still mad about how she left."

"And why not?" Raphael snapped. "Don't ya think we deserved sumpthin' better den a stupid letter? Wait, it wasn't even a letter, it was a note."

"Well she musta had a good reason as ta leavin' like she did." Casey told his friend.

"Sure." Raphael spat. "Cause if she said goodbye ta our faces she might not have been able ta leave and blah, blah, blah." He gave a snort. "As far as I'm concern, dat's all bull hockey."

"Well maybe der was more ta it den dat." Casey replied. "But how are ya gonna know if ya don't come and ask her ta her face?"

Raphael thought about the question for a moment before answering. "Suppose yer right." He sighed. "Guess it wouldn't hurt ta confront her and get some fricken answers."

**Above ground…**

April sat in the passenger seat of her van with arms crossed and were rapping a set of fingers impatiently as she wondered what was taking everybody. "'Bout time." She scolded when the turtles, Splinter, and Casey finally showed up. "With the way you all were taking your time, I thought you decided not to go."

Everyoneexcept Raphael apologized as they got into the van. "Almost didn't wanna." He said, but was drowned out by the engine turning over and being revved up.

The drive out was always long and boring, so April leaned back in her seat to take a nap. As her eyes slowly closed she started to drift. During her drifting was when she began to remember that one particular night. '_She was woken from her peaceful slumber by the ringing of her cell. She snatched it up, quite angry that one of her turtle friends decided they needed to call her at such an hour, to give the caller a piece of her mind. "Have you any…"_

_However she was interrupted. "Ape, ya have ta get a hold of Case." Raphael said sternly._

"_Me! What don't you call him yourself?"_

"_Cause she has his cell."_

"_Why do you need to call him anyway?"_

"_Something happened down at the hospital and Casey is the only who can go find out what."_

"_Alright." April sighed before hanging up the cell. She didn't see what the big deal was about checking up on Cherise now instead of later. Sure the kid's father was in the hospital, but whatbad thing could have possibly happen? Perhaps it was the crankiness talking._' April fell asleep just as she remembered kicking Casey out of her bed.

**Sometime later…**

The long drive down to his grandmother's place was pretty tiring, so the first thing Casey did once they go there was collapse onto the couch for a quick cat nap. With an arm over his eyes he began to remember that night, which felt so long ago and thateveryone else seem to be secretly remember. '_After finding himself on the floor,he got up with a groan and looked at April. "Whatchya go and do da fer?"_

"_Raph called, wants you to go down and check on Cherise."_

"_Why?"_

"_I don't know. Just said something happen down at the hospital."_

"_How does he know sumpthin' happen?"_

"_She called him I guess."_

_Casey put a finger to his chin. "If sumpthin' goin' down, I wonder why she called him and not me." Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, she pinched my cell." Letting out a yawn, the young man gathered up his clothes. "Ya wanna come with me?"_

_April shook her head. "I really don't like hospitals. Not since my dad had to go when he…"_

_Casey put up a hand. "Say no more babe, I understand."_

"_Don't call me babe." April said as she gave Casey a slight boot in the rear while hebent over to pull up his pants._

_With a smirk Casey pulled on his shirt. "Yer wish is my command." The young man said whilesmoothing down his hair. "Guess I'm outta here, see ya when I get back." He raised a hand as he walked out the door, then he went down to his motorcycle and drove off._

_Once at the hospital, Casey had to wait for the security guard to find out if it was alright for him to go up to Marcus's room. However the guard was having a tough time getting a hold of the room. In the end the guard had to have someone sit up front while he took Caseyto the floor the room was on and the dark haired man was able to go to the room itself on his own when the guard was able to take to the head nurse that was on that floor._

_Just as he was about totouchthe doorknob to the room where the man with the tubes was,doorwas opened from the other side by Cherise. Her eyes were red from crying, yet she was happy to see Casey. "Oh uncle." Shesighed while put her arms around hiswaist and her face into his chest._

_Casey gulped. "Is he…?"_

"_Yes." Cherise whispered._

Suddenly Casey was jolted awake by the slamming of the front door. "Wha!" He sat up so quickly that his head spun.

"My apologies Mr. Jones." Master Splinter said. "I didn't mean to wake you." He set down a bag that he had gone out to fetch.

"Dat's alright." Casey answered as he got up off the couch. "I was gonna get up anyway ta give Cherise a call." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket that had a number on it.

"Oh, let me do it." Michelangelo squealed as he snatched the paper from the young man. Then he pulled out his Shell Cell and dialed the number up.

Cherise's voice seemed to almost sing over the phone. "Hello?"

"Whassssup?" Michelangelo said jokingly.

"Michael?"

"You bet. And guess what? We're heeere."

"Really! That's great! Oh I can't wait to see you guys."

"Us either. We wanna know how ya doin' and how things are goin' for ya."

"Well things are going fine, but I'll give you a more when we meet up."

"Which will be tomorrow."

"Sounds great. See ya then."

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_A/N2: Well for anyone who guessed that it was Raph that Cherise called, you were right. (I was actually suprise at how many people thought it was him.) Well I know I've said this before, but I actually think that the next chapter might be the one to end it all._

_At first I really thought it was going to be this one, however it would have been too long if I tried. __I hope it wasn't to complicated though._

_Thanks for reading._


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Finally, I got the next chapter up. Sadly...wait sadly? No, um...well let just say that this isn't the last chapter as I've said. See I thought it would be, but something happen while I was writing it. I realized I couldn't end the story without tie up a loose end somewhere...I at least I didn't think I could. Anyway a little plotbunny (hey, a plotbunny within a plotbunny) bit me and made me write was happened here. So in short, no this isn't the last chapter.__

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**Chapter Fourteen**

That morning the next day everyone got ready to have a big celebration for a great reunionwas about to happen. This wasa reunion among friends…no, of family. Now the time of the party was set for noon, but with such eagerness to be ready everything was up a little before. There was a buffet of snackage in the kitchen and minor decorations in the living room. There were even paper party hats and little noise makers laid across the fireplace, because of Michelangelo insistence that a party just couldn't be one without those 'important' essentials. So with nothing left to do, everybody (with the exception of one) decided that they would sit on the front porch while they wait for their reason to having a celebration. Raphael was the one not to join, he decided to stay in the living room where he could scow without anyone telling him otherwise.

Well noon came and went with no sign of Cherise. At first the group thought that maybe she was lost, so they waited a bit long. An hour pasted by, then another, and then another after that. At about a quarter past four the group wondered if maybe Cherise decided she didn't want to come after all, that maybe it would have been too overwhelming for her if she did. However that thought was quickly diminished when Michelangelo jumped to his feet and pointed at a mini van zooming down the dirt road towards them. "There she is! She's here!"

"Are you sure?" Leonardo questioned. "I mean we don't really know what she's driving."

"Of course it's her." Michelangelo replied sternly. "Who else would want to pull up to a rundown farm house like this?"

"Hey!" Casey gave the orange clad turtle a small glare. In reply Michelangelo stuck out his tongue, making the dark haired young man even madder. "Why you, wait till I get my hands on ya."

"Catch me if you can slowpoke." Michelangelo teased as he jumped out of Casey's reach. He laughed as he continued to jump around while his human friend kept trying to grab him. Eventually the dark haired man was able to grabbed hold of the young turtle in a bit of a bear hug, but the sound of screeching breaks and blaring horn coming from behind made him drop the turtle in fright.

Apparently the two were so busy bouncing around that they failed to notice they were in the upcoming mini van's pathway. Luckily the vehicle was able to stop about an inch from hitting the two. "Are guys asking for a death wish or something!" Cherise shouted when she stuck her head out the rolled down window. "Of allplaces to play tag, you had to choose the driveway?" She continued to grumble asshe pulled herhead back in to turn of the mini van and remove the key from the ignition. "You'd think of what happened two years ago they would know better than to let themselves get hit."

While Casey rubbed his head embarrassingly Michelangelo jumped onto his feet and descended upon the mini van. He hopped up onto the step that was on the side so he could stick his head in through the window. "Well it's about time that you got here, what made you so late?"

Cherise was shockedat how ignorant the orange clad turtle was about what could have happened to him. "I almost hit you, because you were foolish enough to playing in front of a moving vehicle, and all you do is tell me off about being late?"

"Words don't work on him, he's too thick." Donatello said as he came up behind his brother with his Bo staff out. "You have to do something like this to get the message home." He gave his youngest brother a whack on the head, causing the young turtle to grasps his head as he dropped off the side of the mini van.

"Harsh." Cherise said while undoing her seatbelt. "Anyway, I'm sorry to be so late. Therapy ran later than expected."

"We're just glad you came. For a moment we actually thought you wouldn't have come at all." Michelangelo said while opening the mini van door so he could pluck the young woman out; he was much too eager to wait for her to come out on her own. "Wow. You've must have put on weight, cause you're a lot heavier than before."

Cherise rolled her eyes at the comment and says, 'Nice.' while being set down. She wore gray sleeveless shirt, dark blue jeans, and white sneakers. Her red hair was now down to her ankles, still braided tightly as usual, and she quite muscular.

"Oh fine, forget about me." A voice said from behind the driver's seat. "Might as well think I'm dead or something."

"Daddy!" Cherise semi-squealed. "Don't talk like that, it's not funny."

"Well it's not like anyone is going out of their way to say hello to me." Marcus replied jokingly. "But then again maybe its cause nobody can see me. So how about opening the door?"

Donatellowalked around to the other side of the mini van. "I'll get it for you." He grasped the handle and pulled it open. "What the shell!" The young turtle yelped when he saw a large metal grate blocking the passage way.

"Going to have to move there, son, or else I can't get out." Marcus said with a laugh.

Obediently the young turtle moved to the side and watched curiously as the metal grate lowered down in order to be leveled with the mini van, revealing Marcus. His brown hair was shoulder length again and his arms were muscular, almost like before, but a bit more. He wore a white t-shirt, black sweatpants, and black slip-on shoes.

Noticing everyone staring at him as he wheeled out onto the platform made the young man ask, "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"S…sorry." Donatello replied timidly. "It's just that I wasn't expecting…that is to say…I didn't think…I mean we weren't…um…sorry?"

"What's to apologize for?" Marcus questioned while the elevator lowered him down to ground level. "You didn't put me in this thing and you didn't expect to see me in it. So your reaction is quite normal. But the main question is does it bother you to see me like this?"

"No, of course not." Donatello answered.

"Well that's good." Marcus replied while getting off the elevator. "Don't want you to be uncomfortable around me." He wobbled about on the terrain.

Seeing the chair bound man having trouble Master Splinter thumped his walking stick on the porch. "Leonardo." He said sternly, causing the blue clad turtle to jump a little. "Go out there and help your brother bring Mr. Bard here."

"Yes sensei." Leonardo said before jumping off the porch. He ran over to one side of Marcus while Donatello got on the other. Together they lifted the young man off the ground so they could carry him to the house while Cherise locked up the mini van.

Marcus was amazed at how both turtles were able to move him with ease. "Such strength." He said while looking at Donatello's backside. "It felt like only yesterday that I was catching you jumping out of my tub." Marcus looked at Leonardo's back and was a bit shocked to see a piece of his shell missing.

Cherise, too, saw Leonardo's back side as she followed with Michelangelo to the house. "Big brother what happen to you?"

"An injury given to me by someone who was out to hurt my family." Leonardo answered solemnly.

"Yeah, you should have seen him." Michelangelo chimed as ran ahead and jumped up onto the porch, right in front of them. "The bad guy was like this big." He stretched his arms out as far as he could to show size. "And we were like, 'Yikes!' But then we became all, 'grrr.' And then we went like this…" The young turtle did a flying jump kick off the porch, going passed his brothers and Marcus, landing next to Cherise. "Then there was a punch, and a kick, and another kick, and then there was a big explosion. Boom! But we didn't die cause these aliens stopped time and got us off the ship before it went. And then…"

Cherise made a 'time-out' sign with her hands. "Wait a minute. You lost back with 'the bad guy was like this big." She mimicked the young turtle's spreading out his arms.

"That's no way to tell a story." Donatello scolded while he and Leonardo put Marcus down. "See, it was like this…"

Master Splinter put up a hand to interrupt. "Why don't we finish with the greetings and wait until we are all seated inside before talking about our past two years." He turned to Marcus and gave a low bow. "A pleasure to see you again."

"Same here." Marcus replied while bow as best he could.

"Wheel chair or not, yer lookin' better den when I last saw ya." Casey said as he clambered up the stairs.

Marcus turned to the dark haired man and cocked his head to one side curiously. "…you are…" Quickly he straightened it while snapping his fingers. "You must be the little brother my doctor was talking about." He let out a laugh. "Doc was telling me about how my young brother came and I wondered what brother he was talking about, seeing as I only had a couple of sisters. Luckily Cherise was there to 'remind' me of 'Uncle Casey' and 'Aunt April'…who must be this lovely young woman over here."

"Yes, that's me." The red haired woman said while holding out her hand. "A pleasure to finally meet you…um…"

"Coherent?" Marcus chuckled while taking the hand and gave it a kiss. "I must defiantly agree with that."

April blushed a little as she took her hand back. "To agree with Casey, you _are_ looking fit."

"I've had a great nurse." Marcus replied while turning around to looking at Cherise, who was still on the bottom step of the porch. "Never gave up on me once. Lifting me in and out of this contraption. Not to mention luggin' me everywhere too."

"And look what I got out of the deal." Cherise said while flexing one of her arms. "Course I suppose we have to thank that physical therapist of yours to for that too. Being as I had to right him every time he upset himself." She turned to Michelangelo with a matter-of-fact face. "That's how broke the Shell Cell you gave me. Daddy's therapist fell over and I had to lift him up. In the process he accidentally knocked the cell from my side and it smashed over the floor."

"I wonder how he fell over." Marcus joshed while eyeing his daughter.

Cherise blushed a deep red. "Daddy!"

"He's in a wheel chair too?" Michelangelo questioned.

"He is. Been in it a good part of his life" Marcus answered. "And just like Cherish, he kept pushing me to work as hard as I can. But I have to admit that he is a bit of a show off." Looking up Marcus saw a cloud of dust coming there where. "But you'll get to make your own assumption when you meet him."

"You invited him here?" Michelangelo said, being as stunned as everyone else.

Marcus rested a hand on the back of his neck. "Well…he actually insisted on coming here."

"You…you told him about us?" Leonardo eyeing Marcus slightly which caused the male human smile nervously.

While this was going on the cloud pulled up to the house, parking next what Cherise drove, and when the dust settled vehicle revealed was a mini van too. The driver gave an excited wave before moving around to the back. After few minutes the side of the van opened to reveal the same kind of metal grate that Cherise's van had. Once leveled with the vehicle a young man that looked to be about twenty, doing a wheelie, came out onto the platform and stayed in that position until the elevator hit the ground. He was dressed in a red tank-top, dark blue jeans, white sneakers, and black fingerless gloves. His dark hair was cut close to the neck with the top ends spike up. The muscles on his arms were bit bigger than the ones the turtles had and the thinness of his legs showed that he had obviously been paralyzed for a very long time. His chair'swheels were at a slight angle, the backing slightlymet his shoulder blades, and the seat was a couple inches longer than most chair seats were suppose to be.

"Do you need any help?" Marcus called out the young man.

"No way Mr. B." The young man continued to wheelie as he got off the elevator platform. "This chair was made for terrain like this." He spun around as he waited for the elevator to collapse back into the van.

"You're right, he is a bit of a show off." Leonardo whispered to Marcus when he saw the young man started to drop his front end and pick back up again, showing he could move without leaving the spot he was at.

"Whoa!" Misjudging how far back he was making himself go, the young man went too far and fell backwards.

"Bit of a klutz too." Donatello added.

"Any relation of yours Casey?" Michelangelo joshed and received a smack upside the head. "Would people kindly stop hitting me?"

Cherise gave a laugh before jogging over to the fallen man. With hands on her knees she bent down to him with a smile. "Fancy taking a dirt nap, eh Darren?"

"Darren!" Michelangelo and Donatello cried.

"Ya know who he is?" Casey questioned.

"Shell ya!" Michelangelo snapped. "He's the guy that bullied us back when we were kids. He's the one that threw paint balloons at us with his to little cohorts."

Upon hearing this Master Splinter looked at the young man laying on the ground with a bit of a glare before looking at Marcus the same way. Everyone joined him in looking at the older man, making him feel a bit awkward.

Darren felt the angry tension building up. "Keep your anger directed at me. I'm the one you should be mad at, not Mr. B. It was my idea for coming here, not his." With Cherise's help he was able to get upright again.

"Why are you here?" Master Splinter asked as coolly as his stare.

Darren did a full body shiver. "Whoa, the temper dropped fast." He gave a meek smile, which quickly disappeared when he saw that it was not appreciated. "I'm here to apologize." The young man wheeling up to the porch with Cherise following behind him. "I want to make amends towards the ones that I hurt directly, indirectly, and to you. And…I wanted to thank you also."

"For what?" Donatello questioned with a bit of a growl in his voice.

Darren started to give his arm a scratch as he answered the question. "For…geez this is going to sound weird, but for…this. For putting me in the position that I'm in now. If it weren't for you guys and Cherise, I think I would have been worse off…maybe even dead."

Being the protective elder brother that he was, Leonardo's cold glare was just as deadly as his Sensei, if not more. "You are thanking them for somehow putting you in that chair? Why?"

"Because that's how I learned that I needed to change." Darren replied earnestly. "Sure in the beginning I wasn't happy about never being able to walk again. You could even say I was anger about it and for a while I did blame you all for this. But it was during all that time I spent sending resentment your way that made me realize _I_ was really the one to blame and that I had one of two choices. I could keep being angry, blame those who weren't to blame and end up continuing down my destructive path until I eventually destroy my life or I could do something to better myself."

"So how did you go from figuring that it was our fault to a favor we didfor putting you in a chair?" Donatello asked, his cold glare slightly melting a little.

Darren bit his lip. "Well this sounded really cool in my head, but now it might sound really…stupid. But the way I connected things was like this. If I hadn't done what I did to you and your brother, Cherise wouldn't have tricked me into getting into trouble with my mother. And if I hadn't gotten in trouble with my mother I wouldn't have been sent to that boot camp where my accident happened."

"Accident!" Cherise exclaimed. "I hardly call what happened to you an accident."

"What happen?" Michelangelo pressed. His face showed genuine interest and he forgot that he was supposed to be either afraid or angry with Darren.

"Well I was use to being the big man on campus back in the neighborhood and I never liked to back down from a challenge, not that I ever knew how." Darren explained. "So at boot camp I tangled with boys bigger than I and bit off more than I could chew."

"Wild guess, but you got into fight and some guy who broke your spine, right?" Leonardo asked.

"Close." Darren answered. "It was maybe a month after I arrive that me and this one guy really got into it. One day the guy got on my nerves so much that I give him a bloody nose. That night he got his buddies together and cornered me outside my bunk in retaliation. His buds held me while he came around back of me to stab a homemade shank. It felt like forever waiting for that stabbing and throughout the whole time I was terrified. Finally the shank pierced my back, severing my spinal cord." As if he could really feel it right then, Darren rub his backside. "Shortly after they all took off and I laid there bleeding, trying to move for help. However I couldn't move my legs and I was stuck there reliving what just happen. It was there that I realized what it must have felt like when I cornered other people back at my neighborhood. How they must have felt when I loomed over them with threats of harm." Darren looked at Donatello and Michelangelo, bowing as low as his chair would let him. "So again I apologize, many times over."

As the glares started to soften Michelangelo begged to hear more. "What happen next?"

Surprised that he had an audience Darren continued on. "Well as I said before, I started to get mad others for not being able to walk anymore. But once I got over that I started on turning my life around. First I worked on accepting my present condition while learning to turn my minus into a plus. It took two years with the help of a great therapist who worked me mentally and physically." A smile came onto the young man's face. "For physical therapy he would push me to my limit only so he could make me go beyond it. For mental he had me talk at school assemblies and teen violence prevention groups. Watching him work with me and others, I was inspired to become a physical therapist myself."

"Which is where we met." Marcus said.

"I recognized him right away." Cherise chimed. "At first I was like, 'No way was he going to be my daddy's therapist. I don't trust him.' But then Darren was like, 'I'm really and truly am sorry for what I did. Please, please, please let me help your father. I've change and I would love to show you.'"

"I don't think I begged that much." Darren said as he eyed Cherise.

"You've had your turn talking and now it's mine." Cherise scolded. "And I'll tell this story how I wish to remember it." Darren rolled his eyes at her before giving an accepting smile. "So anyway, he was really asking to show the new self. Of course we didn't agree, because we still weren't sure so they gave us one more as like a backup. However Darren was everything a therapist is suppose to be and then some."

Donatello cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'and then some'?" Cherise answered by slipping her arms around Darren's neck and gave it a little squeeze. "Ahhhh."

"But isn't he a little old for you?" Leonardo questioned.

"So what is a couple of years?" Cherise asked back. "Besides, daddy doesn't object."

"I would think that even if I did, it wouldn't have made much of difference." Marcus whispered to Master Splinter. "Once kids set their minds on something it's hard getting them to think other wise, don't you agree?" The elder rat nodded.

"Poor Raphie, he'll be so crushed." Michelangelo said jokingly.

"Speaking of the red one, where is he?" Cherise inquired as she looked around. "He never got a chance go meet daddy and I would like him to meet Darren too."

"He's in the house, sulking." Donatello answered.

"Sulking! Him!" Cherise said with mild surprise. "Why?"

"Didn't like how you left." Leonardo replied.

"But I told you why I had to leave like I did." Cherise said sternly.

"You left us a cryptic note." Donatello retorted. "It hardly told us what you reason for leaving a week after your father woke up was."

"Why did you leave?" Michelangelo asked. "And who did that." He pointed to Marcus's chair.

Cherise opened her mouth to say something, but Master Splinter put a hand up to stop her. "As I said about us telling our past, you should tell yours once we are settled inside. That way Raphael can be included too." Marcus nodded in agreement with the idea.

Being that April was by the door, she opened it for the elder rat and the man in the chair. Once they were in she followed with Casey behind her. After them were Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo.

Cherise and Darren were left outside as the steps of the porch. "Well gee. Don't everyone come rushing to help." The young woman said with a huff as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Darren waved a hand. "It's alright." He unbuckled the belt that held him in the chair. "Really I'm surprised that they didn't continue to ice me. I figured that I'd have to apologize a whole lot more than I already did."

Cherise let out a bit of a chuckle. "Like you kinda had to do with me?"

"Do you think I'll have to by them dinner and flowers to show how sincere I am?" Darren asked while slipping out of his chair onto the porch steps.

"Oh, a date." Michelangelo said in high-pitched voice as his face appeared in the doorway. "And me without a thing to wear. Oh whatever should I do with my hair?" As he pretended to stroke locks of flowing hair until Donatello gave him a shove out of the entrance.

Cherise smiled as she let her arms down. "I knew that you guys wouldn't be like that."

"Yeah, well. It's not like we were going to let him off _that_ easy." Donatello said coolly.

Michelangelo let out a semi-cruel chuckle. "Yeah." He rubbed his hands together. "Be prepared to do some hard core apologizing. Like, you're going to be saying sorry so many times you'll be sick of the word."

"Michelangelo." Master Splinter's stern voice called out.

"Alright, alright. Ten times will be fine."

"Michelangelo!"

"Three?"

"Michelangelo, _do not_ make come out there."

"How about if I just struggle getting me and my chair up these stairs?" Darren asked. "Would that be enough?" Donatello and Michelangelo looked at each other before looking back at the young man to nod. "Ok." Darren reached out from his seat on the stair for his chair so he could collapse it. Then he pulled it towards him and started heaving it up the three stairs as he scooted up them.

Cherise wanted to help so badly, but when she reached out Darren stopped her. "But…"

"You have to let me do it myself." Darren scolded. "I've done this many times before I met you and with more steps than this. No reason that I should stop now or that you should offer just because you feel sorry. You know feeling sorry won't help anyone."

"But I don't. It's just that…well…I don't think it's fair." Cherise said sternly.

"And that is why you'll always be the sweet kid that you are." Darren replied.

"How long have you been dating her?" Donatello questioned as he took the chair from the young man.

Darren was surprised by this movement, he didn't expect any help from the turtles. "Um...I dunno. Maybe going on a year and a half."

"And you don't know her way of conning people?" Michelangelo helped his brother open up the chair and hold it still so that Darren could get into it.

"Well I knew about that, yeah." Darren said in a 'no duh' tone while climbing into the chair and fastened the seatbelt. "Thanks for the help."

"No problem." Donatello held open to door so that Michelangelo could wheel Darren into the house and followed right in after them.

Realizing she had just been left behind, Cherise cried, "Hey! Wait for me." She jumped up the steps and into the house.

* * *

_A/N2: He he. I got a few of you to think I killed off Marcus. For those I didn't trick...well...dang. Anyway, yes I'll tell what happen to him in the next chapter. To tell truth I didn't even think about Darren running him over as revenge. But as you can see, it wasn't him and the real reason will probably sound really lame...I dunno. However with everyone talking about Darren, I felt like I kinda had to bring him back to tie up that loose end and mix in a bit of karma to boot._


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